The Paradox of Memoir
As an essay writer, and a student of essay writing, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what makes personal essays and memoirs work. Why are they so popular? What is it about them that people are drawn to? How can a very personal and seemingly unique experience speak to the lives of others?
While I regularly read essays, particularly those by Anne Lamott and David Sedaris, I’m discovering that, until recently, I wasn’t reading them from the perspective of a writer. Instead, I was enjoying them only as a reader, failing to ask myself the questions that would help me write powerful essays of my own. So, in the hope of becoming a better writer, I spent several hours this weekend at the bookstore poring over the essay section and dissecting what I found there. I picked up collections from Nora Ephron, Marion Winik, Anna Quindlen and Sarah Vowell, to name a few, took over a table in the cafe and got to reading.
The first collection I opened was Marion Winik’s Above Us Only Sky and I immediately found confirmation of the paradox I’d been noticing. In the “Introduction” to Above Us Only Sky, Winik says:
…the personal essayist looks for the truths that connect us all in the details of her own history, her experience of gender or loss or travel. The further paradox is that the more idiosyncratic these experiences seem, and the more specific the details of the telling, the more clearly they seem to strike the universal chord.
As I randomly read through essays in each collection, I found that Winik’s quote and my previous observations held true. Those essays that most resonated with me were the ones that shared the intimate, specific details of often everyday–but always personal–experiences.
The take-away lesson here: essays (or memoirs) won’t reach an audience if they only float on the surface of experience. If you want people to read and relate to your memoir, you will need to tunnel into the center of your experience and excavate the tiny details that made it real to you. By doing so, you’ll also make that experience real (and relate-able) for the reader.
Posted in from the trenches, the writing life, writing in general
January 26th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Great points here. Thanks, Ami!
January 26th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Thanks, Ami, for sharing your insight on tunneling into the center of your experience and excavating the tiny details that make it real to you.
I’ll remember that.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Julia Cameron says that one of the secrets and powers of the memoir is recounting your own view of a situation, rather than what others tell you it was or what others think you should remember or recount about it. You re-establish possession of the memory, which is especially important with childhood memories, considering that we often rely on the renditions from adults who were there at the time, when in fact if we take some time to write it out ourselves, we remember more than we thought we would and often come to realize that our impressions were very different than what we were told they were.
January 27th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Ami, I love the writers you mentioned. Here’s another source: One of the best anthologies of essays I’ve ever found is The Art of the Personal Essay, edited by Philip Lopate. He’s a wonderful writer and his collection of essays shows the form from the classical era to present. His introduction is a short course in writing essays and worth the price of the book.
The art of the essay and memoir… the universal through the specific.
Good post.
January 27th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Cate – I can relate to what Cameron says. I’ve certainly found that the more I write about an experience, the more details and impressions I remember, and the clearer my own feelings about the experience present themselves.
Lindsey – Thanks for that suggestion. I’m adding that collection to my wish list now.
January 27th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
It seems to me that people often look at memoir and fiction as different animals, but to me they’re not all that far apart. Good storytelling is good storytelling. What works for imaginary characters can work for the living, breathing variety too (and vice versa). Of course, the latter are more likely to call you a liar, but what do they know? They’re just characters.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Do you think the fact we are becoming such a voyeuristic society contributes to the popularity of memoirs? People enjoy being able to be a fly on the wall of someone else’s life. For me, the ones I can relate to on a personal level, that I connect to my through my own experiences are the ones I enjoy most.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:16 am
[...] paradox of memoir, Ami Spencer writes, is the more personal details you reveal, the more readers will [...]
January 29th, 2010 at 8:34 am
CB – I totally agree that the best memoirs use fiction techniques while telling a true story. Thanks for the comment!
Kat – I think our interest in memoirs does often come from our desire to live someone else’s life for a while. And I think that desire comes either from wanting to see how “the other half” live or from wanting to know that we’re not alone in our own experiences.