Candid revelations for readers; useful advice and encouragement for aspiring writers.
Memoirists reflect on why and how to write “a true-life tale.”
The enormous current popularity of memoirs inspired Maran (A Theory of Small Earthquakes, 2012, etc.) to ask 20 writers to share thoughts on motivation, morality, and craft. Although the editor writes that this book is aimed at readers as well as writers, the structure suggests that would-be memoirists are the intended audience. Maran prefaces each chapter with a sprightly introduction, along with “Vitals” such as birthdate, schooling, Twitter and website addresses, and bibliography. Each entry is divided into brief sections, beginning with “Why I write about myself” and ending with a boxed nugget of advice called “Wisdom for Memoir Writers.” Most of the contributors are likely to be familiar to readers: Edwidge Danticat, A.M. Homes, Sue Monk Kidd, Anne Lamott, Cheryl Strayed, and Ayelet Waldman are among the women; Pat Conroy, Nick Flynn, and James McBride are among the men. Some offer opinions about the value of memoir as catharsis, therapy, or revenge. All agree that crafting a memoir is different from keeping a diary. “You still have to write scenes and be engaging,” Danticat advises, “You have to edit mercilessly….Don’t just put things in because ‘they happened.’ ” Waldman echoes Danticat’s advice: “Writing memoir requires the construction of story and character in the same way that writing anything does. The trick with memoir is that the story and the character have to be true.” However, there’s considerable disagreement about memoirists’ responsibility to other people. “Memoirs hurt people,” Conroy writes. “Secrets hurt people. The question to ask yourself is, if you tell your story, will it do enough good to make it worth hurting people?” Strayed cautions, “You have to think about the personal consequences of writing about others on a case-by-case basis.” David Sheff declares simply, “Don’t hurt people.” Other contributors include Kate Christensen, Edmund White, and Jesmyn Ward.
Candid revelations for readers; useful advice and encouragement for aspiring writers.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-218197-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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