Memoir is hot these days. At least, it was last year around this time when Michelle Obama’s Belonging was at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Educated,
a memoir written by Tara Westover, followed close behind. Soon thereafter, I
sat in on a memoir writing class. Not because I wanted to write my life’s
story but to cheer on the teacher, Ellen Keith, a fellow faculty member
at the International Writers’ Collective.
Memoir belongs to the genre of creative nonfiction,
a broad tent that holds many circus animals: personal essay, travel
narrative, memoir, blog, and autobiography. Unlike autobiography, which
generally spans an entire lifetime, memoir is more thematic, focusing on
a particular phase. It uses the same building blocks as fiction: a
strong narrative voice and a story told in scenes.
It made me wonder: where does memoir end and fiction begin? Then Ellen distracted me with a hermit crab exercise.
Hermit crab essays adopt already
existing forms as the container for the writing at hand, such as the
essay in the form of a “to-do” list, or a field guide, or a recipe.
Hermit crabs are creatures born without their own shells to protect
them; they need to find empty shells to inhabit
Brenda Miller, “The Shared Space Between Reader and Writer: A Case Study,” Brevity, Jan. 7, 2017
Hermit crabs exist in fiction, too. Think of Lydia Davis and her “Letters."
I wrote a hermit crab piece that day in Ellen’s class and was pleased
with it. But when I got home, I took another look. Had I written a work
of fiction or nonfiction?
Autofiction
Autofiction is a term coined in 1977 by Serge Dubrowsky. He was trying to distinguish his novel Fils from autobiography, which in his mind was a genre reserved for the Very Important. Nowadays, the term is applied to
contemporary authors—Knausgaard, Ben Lerner, and Sheila Heti,
among others—whose “reality effects” create a strong sense of immediacy
on the page, so that very little seems to separate the reader from the
writer’s experience.
David Wallace, “‘Liveblog’ and the Limits of Autofiction,” The New Yorker, Nov. 29, 2018
In other words, the author is drawing from his own life, using
recognizably autobiographical details, blurring the distinction between
writer, narrator, and character. The concept is not at all new.
why do we need a unique term for this movement in contemporary literature, if authors have always used their own lives as inspiration for their work?
Rebecca van Laer, “How We Read Autofiction”, Ploughshares, July 1, 2018
Is It True?
If anything, a label like autofiction encourages readers to lift the
veil. Is this story true? Which character are you? If you’re Jamie Quatro, your readers want to know what your husband thinks of your illicit sex stories. That is to say, did you do any of that stuff? My response to all that is so what? In fiction, you don’t get extra points for truth.
But in nonfiction, truth is the whole ball of wax. You don’t get to
put words into a source’s mouth, create composite characters or compress
multiple interviews into one efficient chat. You can’t make it up.
Image source: Wikimedia
So I look again at my little hermit crab and I’m still not so sure
which species it is. My friend, the poet, asks what difference does it
make? I cite the submission guidelines used by literary journals; you
can only tick one box, fiction or nonfiction. The pragmatic poet says,
submit it as both and see which one gets accepted.
Still, I demur. I’ve got the skeleton on paper. Do I now add a fancy
dress, top hat, and cowboy boots? Or do I stare into the mirror and try
to conjure up my youthful self?
Memory
Memory is a slippery substance. What we remember may be the whole
truth, a half-truth, or an utter lie. We often remember the telling of a
memory better than the event itself. Even if I wanted to, it’s not so
easy to recall events that took place 2 or 12 or 20 years ago.
It’s far easier to embellish as a novelist would. To put people in
the room who were never there or words in their mouth that come out of
your own. But that’s not how nonfiction works.
factual writing is like returning
from a grocery store with materials you intend to cook for dinner. You
set them out on the kitchen counter, and what’s there is what you deal
with, and all you deal with. If something is red and globular, you don’t
call it a tomato if it’s a bell pepper.
John McPhee, “Structure,” The New Yorker, Jan. 14, 2013
I heed McPhee’s advice. I work with what I have and not what I want.
At the same time, the novelist in me demands scenes and details: the
color of his eyes and the taste of her chewing gum. My characterization
must be accurate and alive. I want the reader to be moved, not because my work is true to my life, but because it could also be true to his.
On Lying
Dina Nayeri is the author of Refuge,
a novel with visible ties to Nayeri’s own life. It’s the story of an
Iranian girl who escapes to America, leaving her father behind in Iran.
Nayeri acknowledges that her protagonist is loosely based on her father,
just as she admits to examining her mother regularly in fiction and
essay.
I love to write auto-fiction: it is, I believe, the purest, most powerful way to tell an honest story.
Dina Nayeri, “On Lying and Auto-fiction”, Read It Forward
Truth, however, is in the eye of the beholder. Nayeri’s father can
accept the idea that his truth may differ from his daughter’s. To
Nayeri’s mother, on the other hand, there can only be facts and lies.
Nayeri makes no apology though she does acknowledge her debt.
I take too much from my parents.
Idem
Memoir and autofiction have in common the power to hurt those we
love. There’s a reason why most novels open with the disingenuous
disclaimer.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Most of us don’t write with the intent to wound. Most of us, like
Nayeri, are simply trying to solve the puzzle of our own life.
My little hermit crab might be a work of autofiction or it may be a
bit of memoir. It doesn’t matter. I’m mining my life in service of a
larger truth. If my hermit crab piece ever gets published I’ll let you
know which shell it fell into.
Note: It's All About Me was first published by Karen Kao on her blog Shanghai Noir.
I've always admired hermit crabs for their resourcefulness. Perhaps because as a child, my parents moved a lot, renting this place and that, putting me in this school and that. I wouldn't know how to write a true autobiography because I couldn't vouch for its accuracy, and sources for much of it would be out of reach, in the grave or otherwise. But, as you point out, one's personal life can be a rich batter for every kind of cake. Thank you for another thought-provoking post on the considerations and conundrums of the writer's art.
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