November is Memoir Writing Month, which got us thinking about this genre and why we love it so much. For anyone paying attention to literary and publishing trends, it seems that memoirs are hotter than ever right now!
But first: what is memoir? And how is a memoir different from an autobiography?
During dinner last night I posed this question to my husband, who was stumped, and he is not often stumped (at least not by literary matters). Over grilled cheese, we decided that autobiography is the chronological account of a writer's life, while a memoir focuses on one particular era or subject.
But then I found that he and I are not the only ones who wonder. It turns out there's some nuance to the question. In fact, the dictionary definition of "memoir" is a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources. And an article in The Guardian argues that the memoir "aspires to be thought of as 'literary'," or--as we said it in my 7th grade english class--show, don't tell.
Another difference between memoir and autobiography can also be how and why we choose to read them. For the most part, I choose to read a particular autobiography because I'm interested in the person who wrote it. But I'll pick a memoir because I am interested in the topic of the book.
The first memoir I read was Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year. I was fifteen, and nowhere close to thinking about motherhood, but I liked her humor and edgy take on single motherhood. I read it for the jokes, and the irreverant look into something I'd never thought much about, but reading the book also turned me into a lifelong Anne Lamott fan.
Lately, I've also gotten really into reading Mary Karr, who literally wrote the book on memoir (The Art of Memoir). The Liars' Club was published in 1995, but I only got around to reading it this summer, 20 years later. From there I went on to Lit and Cherry; each of her books addresses a different aspect of her life (child abuse; addition/sobriety/faith; adolescence, respectively) and does so with some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read. (Karr and F. Scott Fitzgerald are the two writers whose sentences I read and re-read, just to see how they do it.)
Although my personal memoir-reading skews to pretty adult topics (both Lamott and Karr are famous for their addiction-sobriety-faith narratives), the genre can certainly work for children as well. Recently, Scholastic published Sonia Manzano's Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx, which has been receiving a tremendous amount of attention for its candid depiction of her difficult upbringing. Readers (including me) may first pick up the book because Manzano is "Maria from Sesame Street," but it's her compelling storytelling that's really capturing young adult readers.
And memoir need not be gritty, nor wrenching tales of great struggle. In fact, Raina Telgemeier's two graphic novels Smile and Sisters deal with adolescent problems that are poignant and real, and also entirely relatable.
Jenn McAllister--better known as Jennxpenn--published Really Professional Internet Person, and is just coming off a whirlwind book tour. RPIP is the story of McAllister's adolescent life, online and off. Having written pieces such as "Top 10 Things Middle Schoolers Worry About That They Shouldn't," McAllister occupies a special authorial vantage point as someone who has come out the other side of adolescence (but only just; she's 19), and has also achieved some significant fame (but as an internet star, an accessible fame).
Finally, Caldecott-winner Allen Say's Drawing From Memory is a memoir that also focuses on a particular aspect of the author's life. Say grew up in WWII Japan, where he apprenticed for a renowned cartoonist. Through text, photographs and drawings, the book follows his coming of age as a person, and as an artist.
So, that's my memoir story. What's yours?
