Comments on Memoirs
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 14th, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Since the Oprah fiasco over the James Frey book there have been some interesting comments made about the subject of memoirs that I want to share with you. Carole Goldberg from the Hartford (Conn.) Courant wrote a newspaper article that asked the question: “What should a reader expect from a writer when the book is labeled a memoir….absolute truth or just emotional truth?”
According to Lary Bloom, a teacher of memoir writing: “There are tenants the honest memoirist should honor, and they speak to issues of authenticity: You have a duty to present facts as they happened and not make them up. If you intentionally mislead the reader, you undermine everything.” One of Mr. Bloom’s guidelines is the “Blood on the Sidewalk Rule: Writing a memoir that has resonance and an honest tone requires including raw things about yourself.”
The author of two memoirs, Haven Kimmel, says “There is an implied contract between writer and reader, and its terms are genuineness, candor, an adherence to truth as much as it’s possible, an avoidance of sentimentality and manipulation.” Marge Piercy, a novelist and writing teacher says memoirists “Can skip whole sequences of events that do not bear on the theme of the memoir. But you cannot invent whole parts of your life, adventures you never had, people you never slept with, travels you never took.”
Even though one of my most trusted former colleagues in New York may disagree, I strongly believe that a publisher has a responsibility to check facts that surround the main themes in a memoir, regardless of the cost. It is their responsibility to their readers. This blog was written taking excerpts from Carole Goldberg’s article in the Hartford (Conn.) Courant and reprinted in newspapers around the United States.
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