The Spectrum of Memoir

There's a long spectrum of personal writing out there, and I like to think of the word "memoir" encompassing it all. A lot of what I discuss here isn't formally memoir - essays are technically not memoir, though collections like Brenda Miller's (see a list of them here) really play with that line. Technically, a memoir is a book-length project covering a particular era or theme of one's life. But one of my mindful activities is re-defining memoir.

Autobiography holds down the far left end of the spectrum of memoir-like writing. Autobiography is something book-length that famous folks write, or what used to formally be called "memoirs" - note the plural. Unless you are a former president or athlete, chances are no one is going to read your birth-to-death story. So most of the rest of us write something to the right of autobiography.

To Read or Not to Read? And More...

Shadow Cut, January 2014

 I think we can all ethically agree that, unless strong circumstances call on us to do otherwise, people's journals are off limit to others' eyes. But what about after they die?

This article in the Opinionator column in the NYT is wonderful. It explores "the other side" of memoir/journals/diaries - do we read those of people we love who've died? Do we want those who outlive us to read ours?

It brings to mind the opening of Terry Tempest Williams' memoir When Women Were Birds, in which she finally opens all the journals her mother left her, only to find they are...blank. My god. To think all that was not, ever, written.

And then, questions not addressed, but significant for those who write memoir:
If we write an official version of memoir, do we then get rid of the journals? Annie Dillard is quoted in Inventing the Truth (a lovely collection of memoir writings edited by William Zissner) that we no longer remember what happened, just what we wrote (after writing memoir). What's the point of the keeping journals and letters after we are done "researching"?

So many questions, so little time.  Yet, worthy of pondering.
Just keep writing, I tell my students who worry about who will read what they purposefully (publication/fame) or accidentally leave behind (sudden death/journals). We'll figure out the next part when we get to it.