What's a Memoir?

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What's a memoir? Do you know?

If you read last week’s post, you know that my sister has decided to write her memoir. I spoke with her last night to discuss her project; she had some questions she wanted to ask me and so we chatted about her progress, the type of writing she’s doing (memoir with a bit of history, humor, some jokes, that sort of thing). And then she asked me if someone might sue her if she wrote about a very serious crime a now deceased friend told her they’d committed. Which led me to the entire concept of memoir and what writing what my sister is writing was, is, and might turn out to be. And it occurred to me: memoir is whatever someone wants their life to have been or what they remember it to be, with some caveats.

But what do others think of memoir? Wikipedia says a memoir “often tells the story of a particular career, event, or time, such as touchstone moments and turning points in the author's life.” Isabel Allende, author of The House of Spirits, City of Beasts, and other works says of memoir that it “is an invitation into another person's privacy." Elie Wiesel, author of Night (a memoir), Dawn, The Forgotten, and other works, said of memoir, ". . . you must be honest. You must be truthful." But like all writing, different writers have their own views on the same subjects. Marcel Proust said, “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” And Mary Karr's The Liar's Club includes notes admitting family members’ recollections differ” for the same events. We believe what we remember, and those memories aren’t necessarily true or accurate, fair or based on reality. They’re what we, with all our faults and memory lapses and perceptions and perspectives, believe to have happened. As William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” But it most certainly isn’t exactly as we may remember.

Authors, or better, memoirists, seek to tell their story. They write, or set out to write, non-fiction about their lives, or certain years and events in their lives, and they do so by trying to write a compelling narrative that makes the events they find important or of public interest in their histories interesting to their potential readers. I’ve known many aspiring memoirists, most of whom are getting ready to retire or have retired and now want to capture some of the magic of the many years of experience they have behind them. Some write about trauma. Others write about their years in the business world. Others want to share aspects of the lives they’ve lived, who they’ve known and how those relationships affected the trajectories of their lives, and so on. Some just want to share the events of their lives with the family members if, once they’re gone, their tribe has any open questions they may want to know the answers to. Most memoirists write in the first person, but not always. It’s the memoirists decision, but for obvious reasons it’s easier to write in the first person when you’re writing about yourself.

Back to my sister. After we spoke about some general writing questions she had, she started telling me about her decision to change the names of family members and said friend who’d committed that serious crime. I asked her why she’d want to change our family members’ names. I told her I understood why she’d not want to divulge her friend’s name: they still have living relatives, and the reality is that my sister has no proof that her friend committed the crime they claim to have committed, and that stating that claim as fact might bring her trouble. She could say the person “told” her they committed the crime, but she couldn’t state they did commit the crime, because she didn’t know if it was true. Anyway, back to her changing our family members’ names. I asked my sister why she would change anyone’s name if she was indeed writing a memoir. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect that she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I think she said she was calling me Ezra. Or maybe she was calling our father that. I don’t remember. Without getting into detail, I told her I thought it was a bad idea. You’re writing a memoir, I said, and that’s your story to tell. If anyone has an issue with it, tough shit—this is your story to write. You’re not going to be completely accurate. Someone may call bullshit. But if you believe something went down the way you’re writing it down, then that’s your perspective, and memoir is about your perspective, not someone else’s. She seems to have heeded my thoughts on the matter.

All this is to say that, while I have yet to write a memoir, these are the things I believe about it:

Memoirs are a person’s story. Their story is theirs to tell, and it probably isn’t going to be one hundred percent accurate. They—and anyone included—should get over it. Unless, of course, you’re accusing someone of a crime and have no proof.

You Don't Have to Get it Published. But Sometimes Writing Down Your Story Can be Cathartic.

Like fiction, memoirs can take whatever structure the memoirist chooses it to be. Some memoirists jump on a theme, a message, that they want to convey in the telling of their story. That’s fine. Go for it. The writing just better be compelling if they want the reader to read it.

It’s likely that your memoir is going to be written in the first person. It’s easier that way, in my opinion, and unless you’re a very experienced writer, it’ll probably come out better in the end than if you wrote it in, say, first person plural. If my sister wrote something like, “We hated puppies and misogynists,” I’d have to put a stop to that. Or, the puppy part, anyway. I like puppies.

Memoirs are often emotional. They have that as their hook, in my opinion, or at least the story they tell, their story, is emotional in some way. The memoirist was abused by their crack-addicted uncle. Or they fought in Iraq and have struggled with PTSD that no one believes is real. Like that.

Memoirs better be damned entertaining, just like fiction needs to be damned entertaining. Not everyone’s life is interesting. Or better, not everyone’s life is interesting to everyone who may pick up your memoir. But the same holds true for your novel, or your story cycle, or whatever. Compelling writing keeps the reader reading. If you’re writing a memoir, make sure to highlight all of the interesting things you believe might make for a good story. You don’t have to keep them all, but making a list of the events in your life that stick out is probably a good place to start. While I haven’t written a memoir, I have written first person narratives that are semi-autobiographical, and I find them cathartic. They help me make sense of the world, and for me, that’s what fiction is about as well—a means to understand the things around us that make us human beings with distinct, individual lives. Will I write a memoir? Maybe. Probably. For now, however, I’ll stick to fiction. And let my sister take the swords that’ll surely come her way once her memoir is done.

Author Cully Perlman

Cully Perlman is author of a novel, The Losses. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com