The Art of Memoir

However you charm people in the world, you should do so on the page.

However random or episodic a book seems, a blazing psychic struggle holds it together, either thematically or in the way a plot would keep a novel rolling forward.

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

be generous and fair when you can; when you can’t, admit your disaffinity. My general idea is to keep the focus on myself and my own struggles, not speculate on other people’s motives, and not concoct events and characters out of whole cloth.

Although I’d fix a wrong date or point of fact for the book to correct it as written record, I couldn’t alter any major take on the past without redoing the whole tome. The self who penned that book formed the filter for those events. I didn’t fabricate stuff, but today, other scenes I’d add might tell a less forgiving story.

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

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

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.

The American religion—so far as there is one anymore—seems to be doubt. Whoever believes the least wins, because he’ll never be found wrong.