Self Help Disguised as Memoir?
In Walter Kirn’s article about writing his new memoir, Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever (Doubleday), he critiques critiques memoirs as self-help books disguised as memoir. “I review books as a day job,” Kirn says, “and through the years I’ve come to view the contemporary memoir as, almost always, a saga of victimization, sometimes by others, sometimes by the self, and sometimes by illness or misfortune, leading, like clockwork, to healing and redemption.”
In the article, he describes his effort to conceive of a memoir of his time at Princeton that would transcend “the daytime-television ghetto of the Top 10 Contemporary Dysfunctions.” He seems to satisfy himself that he’s asking (and answering) a deeper question in his memoir. (Read an excerpt from Kirn’s book here.)
But I wonder: with the emphasis on story arc that seems mandatory even for memoirs now, is it possible to write a memoir that isn’t a story of healing and redemption? Or its opposite, a tragedy? It no longer seems acceptable to write a memoir that merely chronicles life, sans arc. Memoir has to feel like fiction, or it’s not okay. It seems to me that’s how we wound up with a pitiful writer like James Frey making such a splash with a pseudo memoir. The story arc was so appealing, people forgot to consider whether, as a memoir is supposed to be, it could actually have happened as written.
I don’t count here personal writing like that of David Sedaris. His humorous essays don’t constitute memoir, in the strict sense of following one thread of life from beginning to resolution. I’m thinking more of Mary Karr, Augusten Burroughs, etc.
So, a question: Can a memoir without a story arc be published in the current climate? Is it desirable (or even possible) to write a memoir without a story arc? Does the shaping of memory into story change its meaning? Its veracity? Leave your thoughts on this, and any memoir recommendations, in comments.
Very interesting question, Kris — it affects poets as well, as poetry collections are often supposed to have an “arc” or “theme” — some people like this, some don’t. But we’re all affected right now by the tyranny (?
) of story.