Comments on: Reviewing Memoirs: Do You Cross the Line?

By: Gill James

Gill James — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 07:33:03 +0000

Absolutely agree that the focus should be on the writing. But it does seem callous to totally ignore the issue and how brave the writer has been in sharing.
This is something I deal with regularly in teaching autobiography.
I issue a health warning before my students start and have a pickup plan in place.
We have developed the habit of acknowledging the emotion after the critique.

By: Lori Schafer

Lori Schafer — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 04:26:29 +0000

This is actually why I don’t like biographies of famous people in any form. I don’t really want to know that Joan Crawford was a child abuser or that Jim Morrison was a jerk precisely because it does color how I feel about their work. But that doesn’t mean I judge their performances by their personal lives. And if a reviewer can’t keep those two aspects of a person separate in his or her mind, then they really ought to think twice about reviewing the work.

By: Marta

Marta — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 20:17:19 +0000

In reply to TheseWomensWork. Hi Tam, that is so well put. I am glad to hear you stand up for the art for its own sake. It is a good strong reminder. Thank you!

By: TheseWomensWork

TheseWomensWork — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:10:02 +0000

This brings up an interesting point that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. In America, I think we tend to mesh the personal and public, whereas in Europe (at least in the past), the two were kept more separate. One of my favorite writers, Anais Nin, complained once that this was one of the problems with American public figures – we can’t look just at their work but we also look at what they did or did not do in their private lives and judge their work accordingly. The example that comes to my mind is the legendary actress Joan Crawford. I grew up in the 80’s, when domestic violence was coming to the forefront of the women’s movement and Christina Crawford’s “Mommie Dearest” came out. I remember how Joan Crawford suddenly fell way out of favor and people were disregarding the great body of work that she did for film because of the horrendous acts of violence against her children that were described in the book. It was as if the major accomplishments she had achieved in film were nothing compared to the fact that she was a child abuser.

I try to look at a piece of art in and of itself, regardless of what the artist has or has not done in their private life. It’s not easy, especially since we have the media working against us, ready to crucify any artist for what he/she has or has not done in their private and public lives. But as a writer, I have respect for the artistic work and I know that what a person has or has not done in their personal lives does not make their work better or worse (even when it’s a memoir based on that personal life).

Tam

By: Marta

Marta — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:41:22 +0000

In reply to Rosemary. Hi Rosemary -- many people, I believe, let this concern (a valid one) stop them from writing. What I feel very very strongly is that one must write these stories, truly, utterly, without thought of how they might impact anyone else. This alone is a crucial endeavor. After that, how and if to go public is an entirely different matter and can be dealt with at that point. Do not let anything stop you from the writing though!

By: Marta

Marta — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:39:50 +0000

In reply to Shelagh Plunkett.

Dear Shelagh, this is EXACTLY the kind of memoir I like to read, and the kind I try to write — describing the experience as it was then, without hindsight — if the narrator of the story was not thinking about post-colonial politics then it is not relevant.

By: Rosemary

Rosemary — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 11:43:59 +0000

The thing that would bother me about publishing a memoir is not what people I don’t know think or say – it’s the people I do know that worry me. I have read before that many people can’t write memoir until their parents are no longer around to read it, and I completely identify with that.

By: Shelagh Plunkett

Shelagh Plunkett — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 01:50:48 +0000

I wrote a memoir of my adolescence spent in Guyana and on Timor, Indonesia during times of political upheaval. I chose to write it in the voice and with the level of knowledge that I had at the time. I was 13 when we moved to Guyana from Canada. Two reviewers tore into the book because it lacked an analysis of post-colonial politics and failed to reflect on expatriot privelege. They had next to nothing to say about the writing or about the book that it is (as opposed to the book that it isn’t but which they believed it should be). As a memoirist of course I want readers to respond to the content but not exclusively. I worked hard at the writing of the “story” and hope that it is what moves people when they read my book.

By: Marta

Marta — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 10:24:45 +0000

In reply to Jo Carroll.

“Some people think they know all te ins and outs of me because of what I’ve written.” Great line. That’s something I’m aware of too — no matter what each human being remains a mystery — even the ones who write memoirs!

By: Jo Carroll

Jo Carroll — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 07:38:01 +0000

Oh yes. When I wrote Over the Hill (a travel memoir) my mentor kept telling me to write about things that were close to me, and not stuff you could see on the telly. That meant telling my daughters things I hoped they’d never need to know (like a man with a gun in Lucknow). But my mentor was right – it’s what the book needed.

And the response has been interesting – some people think they know all the ins and outs of me because of what I’ve written. I don’t disabuse them (because they seem to quite like the ‘me’ they have read about!). But I could remind them that – while everything actually happened (I don’t make stuff up) – the way it’s written is what matters.