IS THE PLAIN TRUTH ENOUGH IN MEMOIR WRITING?

As I prepare to teach a class in memoir writing, I know which class will generate more questions. "Speaking the Truth." (In a previous post I talked about writing the truth, "The Truth and Only the Truth").Without a doubt there will be students who choose both sides of the issue---one will not embellish and will have a boring memoir, and another will use literary devices to enhance the story. Hopefully no one will be harsh in dealing with the truth. Readers will ask for more from the memorist who crafts the truth in such a way  as to draw them into the story.
     Judith Barrington, in her book, "Writing the Memoir,"(The Eighth Mountain Press ISBN 0-33377-51-7, 2002)  begins the chapter on"The Truth:What, Why and How" with this statement;"Those of us who write memoirs find ourselves speculating frequently about truth. What is it? How can one person know it? What is its relationship to facts?
     Barrington continues by saying,  "she felt that too much research could result in your realizing the story you have been carrying around in your head for so long could not be true. The dates don't match up or someone left before the other arrived. I  disliked research until recently, which may be why I chose to write memoirs for which I relied primarily on memory."
     In William Zinsser's "Inventing the Truth,"(A Marine Book, Houghton Mifflin Company, ISBN 0-395-90150-1, 1998), weighs in on some of today's  writers of memoirs.  "Today no remembered episode is too sordid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out for the wonderment of the masses in books and magazines and on talk shows."  This book is an compilation of nine authors who are noted for their memoirs.
     Frank McCourt has been cited in other posts regarding his attitude toward his family, particularly, his mother, Angela.  In "Angela's Ashes," he marvels at the fact he survived it, and the second marvel is that he was able to triumph over it in "Angela's Ashes''beating back the past with grace and humor and with the power of language." In his books, McCourt, as do others, Hamil, Karr, and Wolff, represent the new memoir at its best, "it's because they were written with love."  They want the readers to know "they elevate the past."
     Russell Baker has always been one of my favorite writers. He was a columnist for the New York Times when he  wrote the first draft of "Growing Up." After finishing the first draft he realized he had written a "reporter's book."  He had witten about the Depression era and its effect on his family.  "What he left out was his mother and himself--in short, the story."  In order to rewrite the memoir, his life had to be reinvented.("Inventing the Truth, 1998, p.15).
     I think this quote from Russell Baker sums up the difference in auto biography and memoir: "The autobiographer's problem is that he knows too much--he knows the whole iceburg, not just the tip."
     I will close this post with a quote from Judith Barrington's book: "One thing we can probably agree on is that the truth, however we define it, is often hard to tell.  It can be hard to tell the facts of the story, and it can be hard to tell its emotional truth, too."


Your comments are welcomed.