Memoirs: Obsessive or Progressive
How do we see ourselves? Creatively like in this art project? How do you see yourself?
There’s a surge of memoirs.
The cynics speak of how self-preoccupied we are. How even people with nothing to say are writing books.
The optimists speak of how books are now accessible to all. Everyone has a chance to tell their story. And recognize the insight and understanding that comes from writing a book.
The French are baffled about America’s preoccupation for self-understanding. American’s are baffled that whole cultures don’t value and even condemn individuals examining themselves deeply.
Are memoirs a sign of personal obsession with one’s own story? Or is the memoir writer the self-examining soul who braves disclosure to help others progress in their personal growth?
Yet somewhere there is an objective view. A perspective that gets beyond our likes and dislikes, beyond our judgments.
Viewing the display table of biographies and memoirs in a local Barnes and Nobel in North Carolina in the United States of America revealed that almost all of them were of celebrities – actors and actresses most of all, but also others of notoriety, including musicians, sports players and politicians.
What that shows is that publishers know that famous people have an easier time selling books. It doesn’t show that memoirs by unknowns are not valuable.
Examining our own lives is valuable, if we have the desire and the time for it. It helps us understand ourselves, and others. It helps with consciously changing ourselves, discovering our blind spots and opening our hearts and souls.
There’s lots to say about writing memoirs, and we’ll be exploring more about it.
What do you think about memoirs? Are there too many?
Is it a bad development that almost anyone can publish a memoir these days? Are memoirs self-indulgent?
Leave a comment, with a link back to your writer’s blog or website, and let us know what you think. Comments count!
(Updated 12/11/2011)
Category: Women Writing Memoirs
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Like so many things in life, I find that memoirs really run the gamut. Some are certainly self-indulgent, others are flat out boring. The very best ones hit that sweet spot where the author is obsessed just enough with her (or his) story to really dig deep to explore and reveal personal and social issues that translate into universal truths. Whatever the tale, if it’s made relatable and engaging by strong writing, pacing and the right balance of emotions (humor and pain, for instance), I’m hooked. It’s the genre that lets readers know they’re not alone in the struggle. When done well, it’s sublime.
I disagree that we are self-obsessed while writing novels. We are busy, to be certain since the demands of composition are rigorous, but we are involved in a circumstance and with characters that are fictional. It is different from memoir-writing.
I wrote a memoir under a pseudonym about child sexual assault (No More Hurt, ebury/Random UK). It spent time on the Sunday Times bestseller list and was originally listed on the Guardian’s Best of the Year list. A man from the east coast wrote me to disclose that he was a pedophile but that the book had made him see the damage he might do were he to act on his impulses. Bullshit? Maybe. Probably, even. But I like to think there are mothers, at least, who were helped by the frank discussion of the topic and who pulled their kids out of dangerous situations.
I think it all depends on the writing + the narrative voice. Also, my favorite memoirs are a blend of the personal story + history, science, economics + whatever other disciplines enrich the story.
I just sold my memoir, Looking for a Kiss: Downtown Heartbreak and Healing
to Heliotrope Books, to be be published in 2015. I’m excited. I have
a good story that women can relate to- and I’m a funny writer. Took years to write and years to sell. If you believe in your book, do not give up.
As someone who has just finished editing her first memoir, I feel this genre of writing is important.
Personally, being able to write about my experiences helped me to heal emotionally and I was able to see everything that had happened in a different light than I had originally. I’ll admit it wasn’t always easy going over the details of what happened and experiencing the pain once again, but in the end I feel I’m a better writer for it.
I won’t lie – especially when it comes to celebrities (often pushed by their publicists to do so, often ghost written, sometimes just incredibly offensive like “real housewife” Melissa Gorga’s book on marriage etc.) I am rather sceptical. It feels like little more than cashing in on a different market a lot of the time.
I have read stories from authors who work their whole lives for a career in writing who’s tables are all but vandalized by the body guard of the celebrity at the signing table next to theirs because they decided to release a cook-book or memoir or lofty advise. So yeah, I’m sceptical, I can’t help it – especially because they get so much automatic promotion it’s not really in the same category.
As for memoirs in general — I prefer fiction, and be that fiction with heavy autobigraphical elements. I don’t think it’s wrong to write them at all, but it’s not what I enjoy reading – and if I do read them, it’s for people who actually worked to change the world, people who travelled and who are dedicating their whole life to something that will never make them a lot of money or make them famous.
The word memoirs can mean so many different things. I’ve found some memoirs inspirational: tales of people overcoming extreme hardship or people who have given themselves to helping others in a big way.
I think some stories have to be written. It is important to record some aspects of human experience so that we can learn from them or feel changed by them. I am drawn to such memoirs whilst I’d leave others on the shelf for others to enjoy.
As for my own memoirs, I have no intention of publishing them (right now, anyway) but they are very useful for my writing. I use them for events, characters, plots…
I agree with Janis – like any genre, there are good and bad autobiographies. I simply put down the bad and don’t read on. On the best autobiographies have made me feel honoured to be allowed to share the writer’s memories.
There are many memoirs out there now. But I do not begrudge anyone the right and freedom to tell their own story. I myself love to read memoir. I have read well-written, insightful, moving personal stories, and I have read my fair share of self-indulgent, mundane, even ill-willed memoir. But the point is this: if a person is telling their truth, showing us a view into a life from their own perspective that is as honest as possible, and open and written from the heart, I appreciate that generosity. I appreciate the difficulties one faces when telling personal stories that may cause themselves shame, rile up feelings of guilt or regret. But when someone shares their story because they know that someone, even one person out there may find comfort or guidance or inspiration from their story, then I think that is wonderful. It is a gift. Also, not every memoir has to be about extreme circumstances, hardship, grand successes, or humiliating defeats. A simple story from a moment in someone’s life, told well, offered with sincerity, can be beautiful. It is in the moments, the simple and spare everyday that life is lived, and lessons learned.
I write memoir, as well as fiction and poetry. When I decide to write a work of memoir, it is because I have experienced something that has changed me – not necessarily in a big way, perhaps in a quiet and subtle manner, but it is a change that I feel compelled to share. I hope to connect with others who have had similar experiences, to let them know they are not alone. And also, to help those who have lived their lives differently to open up to a new understanding for others.
I recently co-authored a collaborative memoir – Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mother – with three other women – http://www.stillherethinkingofyou.com . We worked together in our writers group to examine each of our relationships with our mothers. Working and writing together gave us support, and helped us to see our own stories through the eyes of our co-writers. It was an amazing experience, and the resulting book is one we hope will encourage other women, and men, to write about their own relationships with the people who have shaped who they are, and discover a new perspective, and an ongoing, changing view toward the past.
I think, yes, of course, writing a memoir is a sign of self-preoccupation. But what’s to say writing a novel isn’t either? I don’t think it matters if I’m writing about myself or if I’m writing about a fictional character – my thoughts, feelings, objectives, ideas are going to come out and play a part in my writing regardless.
I personally love memoirs. I love the honesty and the visualization they can bring to things I’ve never before had in my life. I would love to write one my own someday because I think I have something to share.
Memoirs aren’t, or they shouldn’t be, journals. They should tell a story for the reader, there should be a purpose to writing them. Just like something fictional, it needs to be appealing and, self-indulgent or not – if it draws in readers then I think it’s all worth it.
I love when you write “I love the honesty and the visualization they can bring to things I’ve never before had in m life.” I have, from reading memoir, felt as if I have for a moment known what it is to “walk in another shoes.”
I never set out to write a memoir and will admit that in general, I have considered them “navel gazing.” So why am I writing one? I’ll be blogging about it on this site in a week or two so I’ll have more space to go into detail then, but in essence I am writing a memoir because that’s the book that wants to be written. Yes, the positive feedback I get from my blog (that people find my writing about living with bipolar mood disorder illuminating, or comforting because it’s so like their own experience) makes me think I am on the right track. But I don’t really feel that I get much choice about it anyway! Even if my memoir were never to be published, it has to be finished now – I honestly don’t think I will be able to get on with the idea for a novel that’s just beginning to germinate unless and until the memoir is complete.
Sharing you story, your experience, is not simply “naval gazing” (which, by the way, can be so helpful and self-enlightening) but it is an extremely generous act. I know that I have been helped, possibly even had my life “saved” by reading a memoir that has made me feel that I am not alone, that I am not an anomaly, and that life, even when it is complicated and difficult, can be lived well. Keep writing. Write what you are compelled to write.
I was very excited to read this article!
I totally relate to Charlotte Walker’s comment in several significant ways. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was seven, but I always thought I’d write fiction. At thirty-seven I was diagnosed with the little-known form of bipolar disorder triggered during childbirth called postpartum onset bipolar disorder. Not only did I become manic but I was hypergraphic. (Hypergraphia is an unusual form of compulsive writing that was written about so brilliantly in Dr. Alice W. Flaherty’s book “The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and The Creative Brain”). I began writing my memoir a day after giving birth and I’ve have spent the past seven+ years writing it in between my seven hospitalizations for bipolar disorder.
In 2008 I created a blog about being a mom with bipolar disorder, and while I received many comments that encouraged me to write a memoir, I knew I’d write it no matter what kind of feedback I received.
In March I signed a book contract for “Birth of a New Brain – Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder” to Post Hill Press. Yesterday I was awarded a Fellowship at the Catamaran Writing Conference in Nonfiction and Memoir taught by Frances Lefkowitz, author of the acclaimed memoir “To Have Not”.
Having landed a book deal and a writing fellowship has been incredibly thrilling, but it’s only a beginning. Now I must focus and refine my memoir so that it’ll actually be bought and read after its publication! There are so many memoirs being published that there’s an extremely high chance it could sink into oblivion. I’ll do all I can publicity-wise, especially with my niche market, to make sure that doesn’t happen. And I’ll try not to navel-gaze too much between now and then! 😉
Memoirs don’t have to be mere personal obsession. They can be a way of reflecting on one’s journey, reviewing accomplishments and failures, and mapping out where to go next. They can also be a gift of wisdom and inspiration that one wishes to leave behind for others as a gift.
I hope to write a memoir one day “when I grow up.” (smiles)
Exactly. And write it (even if you never “grow up”)
I’m now on my second project writing someone else’s memoir. In the first case (Beyond the Rapids), the book was written because many other people felt it should be. The second project, in process, is because the woman who commissioned the work is doing so because her sons asked her to write her story, and she believes that it can help others.
It’s like everything else we write: we have something to say. We are jot alone, others are facing similar situations and our insides may help…but writing is an obsession in itself!
Authors tend to say live first, then write. Memoirs are very direct ways to do this. Rae Ellen Lee’s I Only Cuss When I’m Sailing and My Next Husband Will Be Normal are TERRIFIC FUN. A new one, Julliard to Jail by Leah Joki is FANTASTIC. IMHO the literary world should be like a mile-wide Middle-Eastern bazar with something to please every intellectual and sensory predilection–there is probably a memoir in almost every person who can get past the discomfiture of writing one.
To Sandy Oitzinger and the moderator of this blog post about memoirs, thank you. A thoughtful post about the writing of memoirs. As for my two memoirs, I wrote them to entertain and to offer an attitude about experiences that was outside the norm: the truth about sailing, and how funny it can be when your brilliant and funny (and conservative) husband realizes, at the age of 60, that he is really a she. Thanks again.
I think memoirs are an intriguing slice of someone’s life. I don’t read them often, but I think everyone’s early novels have strong memoir content, we need to write from what we know.
Writing out stories from your life is cathartic and gives you an objective view, which is a form of healing. Sharing your experiences with others is a lovely form of communion, especially when those experiences are verified with “me too”.
Some memoirs are to be avoided as vainglorious self publicity, almost masturbatory in their content; but they are easy to spot as they are (ghost) written by the most vacuous of “celebrities” who believe their lives are interesting purely because of their notoriety.
Many blogs (including mine) have some memoir content, but rather than rattling on about me, me, me, I try to apply my experiences within a context, so some of it might be useful to others experiencing the same.
“To survive, we must tell stories.” – Umberto Eco
Telling our stories is part of the healing process. We have an innate need to get our story out. Nothing self-centered about it.
I suppose for some memoir writing fuels or exorcises obsession, but perhaps also the writing what you know phenomena, sharing insights, that’s what makes a really good memoir, I think, beyond the quality of the writing. I remember so fondly Pentimento, by Lillian Hellman, a favorite, and the power of Wall’s Glass Castle, these are not obsessive, rather the natural instinct to elucidate. Good story telling. Remember Russell Baker’s Growing Up, that was a beauty. What does not work for me are the memoirs designed to impress, especially those of the “I lived really recklessly and wild and now look at me variety.” Not for me, then again, something for everyone.
I think we are asking the wrong question here. I have a tendency to say, does it matter? Isn’t the whole point of a memoir that it is unique, and matters in a unique way to the one and only person who penned it? I would say there’s a range of reasons why a person writes a memoir. Self interest, catharsis, healing, disgust, sensationalism, black humour.
I would say it’s superfluous and unnecessary to ask such a question.
For me, my memoir was a chance for me to be me.
I love this response! Yes! Exactly! When I write — and I only write memoir — I feel as if this is when I am wholly and completely myself. It could be any art form, but this is my chosen one.
Unfortunately, the overload of celebrity memoirs shows that the publishing industry seems only interested in the easy sell. Because I am working on a memoir and I’m not a celebrity, I do spend time seeking out and reading memoirs by people who are less famous. I think that’s a better way to study the craft of memoir writing. How does one write a compelling story without the fame hoopla as its premise? Those stories are the ones I find to have more universal appeal.
And I’m wondering: what about the memoir-blog? Not only does autobiography seem to get an undeservedly bad rap at time, but memoir-blogs seem even more apt to be dismissed. Many who care about literature resist the idea that a blog can actually be literary (I know of what I speak: I’m an English professor and run into this attitude frequently, by colleagues and students alike!)
It’s true that there are so many blogs out there that it can be hard, if not overwhelming, to separate the wheat from the chaff. By “memoir blog” I do mean blogs whose purpose is to produce polished, free-standing pieces that are autobiographical or personal essay-form in nature (pretty much what I do), which might distinguish it from other kinds of blogs. It’s a form that should be taken note of!
I teach autobiography courses at a university regularly. It goes without saying that there are excellent autobiographies and bad ones, but the detractors seem to have a well-honed knack for finding the bad ones, taking them as representative of the entire genre, and denouncing it as “useless navel-gazing.” Which is just so wrong!
Autobiography, at its best, and there are lots of beautiful bests out there, is an irreplaceable gift of the personal. Fiction is no substitute for it.
Of course, I’m looking for readers, so I’ll give my blog a parting pitch: It’s feministy, literary, at times excrutiatingly personal, maybe a bit quirky. Breast cancer and menopause run through it as threads. But mostly I try awfully, awfully hard to just make it a really good read.
Thanks, everyone, for all the good thoughts above, and for the tips on new books to consider for my ever-evolving course.
Nice reply Janis. I write a “food memoir” blog that is a non-continuous series of stand-alone short stories. The hardest thing is deciding who my audience is: is it “foodies” or memoir readers? The foodies might be disappointed because I don’t do restaurant reviews or complicated recipes and the memoirists might feel short-changed because it’s not a journal. I’m my own worst enemy, but I’m loving doing it and that’s enough for me. I blog at ‘The Good the Bad & the Italian’. http://ambradambra.wordpress.com
I believe that we can learn a lot from one another through sharing our personal stories and in sharing we realize how similar we all are and that we are never alone in our feelings or experiences. I am a chronic adventure junkie and write about my adventures so people may realize that anything is possible for the average person, for I am an average person. I recently wrote a memoir entitled Learning to Play with a Lion’s Testicles about overcoming fear in South Africa while volunteering solo at a Big Five Game Reserve. I wrote the book for I know that many people dream of going to Africa but due to commitments and/or restraints they may never have the chance to. This book brings the reader on the journey so they may experience it as though they are there as well – but most importantly they see a regular Jane overcoming life-long fears and perhaps it will inspire them to do the same. I believe fear is a human emotion we all have in common and one that, through sharing our adventures and experiences we may help each other overcome. And with less fear in our lives, we make more room for love, understanding, compassion and ultimately for living. I love hearing other people’s stories and love writing my own. Currently on an adventure in Hollywood – woot woot!
Sylvia, have you read “Traveling with Pomegranates” by Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter? It’s a memoir of sorts which alternates voices from one to the other. Very interesting and exceptionally well-done.
Also, my book “All on Account of You: a True WWII Love Story” is a memoir about my mother, interspersed with my dad’s love letters, but I wrote the first chapter to introduce their story. I say go for it.
This is just the area I’m mulling about. A memoir doesn’t always have to be about oneself. But bringing the self into it could make it more immediate as a story.
What I’m thinking about is a mother-daughter conversation in a memoir about the mother. The daughter’s introduction (the daughter is the writer) makes the “memoir” of her mother’s life more real.
Thanks for raising the question here. I’ve shied away from the memoir form, because the memoir I want to write isn’t about me, but is about my mother. But what if the story can come out better by including a bit about me?
Interesting. If you want to check it our, I and four other women did write a collaborative memoir about our relationships with each of our mothers – Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mothers ( http://www.stillherethinkingofyou.com) – I wonder if how we wrote it connects with your ideas for your memoir about your mother…
Thanks so much for introducing yourself. We’d love to have a blog post. You have a beautiful narrating voice, and neat paintings. Will contact you!
What a pleasure to find your site this morning!
I am a writing coach, an editor, and the author of “The Nancy Who Drew” – The memoir that solved a mystery. Due out the end of next month.
http://thenancywhodrew.com/
I am also a blog talk radio host on Art and Ascension, and often feature writers. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rysa
I have a regular feature called Read Your Story Aloud Day ~ it’s so empowering to read our work over the air waves.
I would love to write a blog post here. I found my voice through writing, and since then, I simply can’t be shut up! 🙂
Thank you ~~~