Magical Memoir Moments
Memory and Truth–Three Different Memoirs from One Family
You may have read about how Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs created dissension in his own family and in the family of Dr. Finch, the psychiatrist with whom Burroughs went to live at the age of 13. There have been law suits charging defamation of character and invasion of privacy. This book, which was…
Say It Ain't So, Greg! Three Cups of Tea Comes Under Memoir Scrutiny
I loved the book Three Cups of Tea. You likely did also if you read it. This morning The New York Times carried an investigative story that questions the veracity of the central narrative about stumbling upon Korphe, a village in Afghanistan, after failing to reach the peak of the mountain K2. Here’s the story:…
The Remembering Self v. The Experiencing Self–A Crucial Distinction for the Memoir Writer?
The video below of a TED talk given by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman is a must-watch for all memoir writers. In this talk Kahneman, psychologist and inventor of the field of behavioral economics, describes how hard it is to study happiness. A moment in time lasts about three seconds. The average person has over 600…
Are There Too Many Memoirs? Should Most Life Stories Not Be Told?
If you follow memoir in the news (one of the categories in this blog which could easily be ten times larger if I followed all the relevant stories here), you probably have read Neil Genzlinger’s savage review of three recently published memoirs (along with praise for a fourth one) in the The New York Times…
High Crimes Against the Memoir Form?!
Ryan Grim’s searing essay in The Huffington Post about George W. Bush’s new memoir deserves our attention. Grim claims that many of the passages of Bush’s Decision Points are taken word-for-word from accounts of other writers. Read his review here. In it Grim describes high crimes and misdemeanors in the Bush memoir. He found lots…
Five Best Memoirs: A New List by Norris Church Mailer
Every so often I “Google” key words related to this blog–like “best memoirs,” ” memoir blogs,” and “top ten memoirs.” If you do the same–Google “best memoirs”–right now, you will come across this article in the Wall Street Journal by new memoirist Norris Church Mailer. I have not read her memoir about life with her husband…
Defining Memoir–With Tongue Firmly in Cheek
Thanks to Richard Gilbert, whose wonderful blog Narrative I highly recommend, I can include a link guaranteed to induce a chuckle. One of the goals of this blog focuses on the quest to understand memoir as a genre. What differentiates it from other forms? Why is it both popular and maligned in the contemporary literary…
The Original American Memoirist? Walt Whitman!
What could be a better, and more honest, title for a memoir than Song of Myself? I had not thought of Whitman as the originator of American memoir (usually slave narratives and captivity narratives are given credit for this honor), but I think I could make a case for Leaves of Grass, and especially “Song…
Top Ten Fake Memoirs: What Can We Learn?
When I began this blog a little less than two years ago, I started a category called “memoir in the news” after several of the books on the “Top Ten Fake Memoirs List” located here made news for the wrong reasons. I invite you to read the descriptions of these ten books. What do they have…