The Art of Memoir

And we’re all doomed to drama; even the most privileged among us suffer the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human.

The secret to any voice grows from a writer’s finding a tractor beam of inner truth about psychological conflicts to shine the way.

A memoirist forging false tales to support his more comfortable notions—or to pump himself up for the audience—never learns who he is. He’s missing the personal liberation that comes from the examined life.

I was a liar. Even though I lived in a place where everyone knew who I was, I couldn’t help but try to introduce new versions of myself as my interests changed, and as other versions of myself failed to persuade. I was also a thief.

“Anything worth doing is worth over-doing.” (The unspoken battle cry of many an alcoholic such as myself.)

In a great memoir, some aspect of the writer’s struggle for self often serves as the book’s organizing principle, and the narrator’s battle to become whole rages over the book’s trajectory.

Neurologist Jonathan Mink, MD, explained to me that with such intense memories as David’s, we often record the emotion alone, all detail blurred into unreadable smear.

Also, we naturally tend to superimpose our present selves onto who we were before, and that can prevent us from recalling stuff that doesn’t shore up our current identities.

The best memoirists stress the subjective nature of reportage. Doubt and wonder come to stand as part of the story.