Hi, Lucy!

I enjoy memoir as well. (When I can trust the writer, that is. I like my fiction fictional and my memoir as accurate and honest as the remembering writer can manage. Somehow we know the difference, don't we?)

Have you read Michael Dirda?  

http://www.amazon.com/An-Open-Book-Coming-Heartland/dp/0393057569/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1375988727&sr=8-6&keywords=Michael+Dirda

A wonderful memoir that manages the neat trick of being wry, welcoming and wistful all at the same time. A good read!     

--edited by Carl E Reed on 8/8/2013, 4:12 PM--

@Carl--thanks for the rec! I had not heard of that book, but I checked it out and it looks fantastic. Sounds right up my alley! How did you come across this book?

I like your criteria for memoir, too . . . but how do you judge prior to reading (or even after)? Just curious.

Lucy,

I'll answer by offering up two names I consider infamous in this regard: Augusten Burroughs and James Frey. 

James Frey has had a public beat-down administered to him by Oprah; Augusten Burroughs was disposed of by Priya Jain years ago.

http://www.salon.com/2005/11/11/burroughs_4/ 

Here's the thing: If I'm reading someone's memoir and I encounter incident after incident that strains credulity--such incidents presented in a literary voice that tries a bit too hard to be sweetly saccharine, shocking or brain-dead confessional--I grow bored/suspicious/weary. Especially if this is the author's first or second "swing-for-the-fences" book. In our tabloid culture of reality TV- /talk show-whoring there is no longer a distinction made between fame and notoriety, and "truth" is simply what the believer firmly wishes to believe/proffer. Or so we have been told/sold. 

This is a matter of discernment and discrimination, I freely admit. But when I read the memoirs or essays of people I like and trust--David Sedaris, say, or Jonathan Franzen--I believe that I am getting truth presented to me. A truth, no doubt, masterfully-shaped and paced, but truth nonetheless. It's there in the subtext. In the wry, intelligent introspection. In the concern and empathy shown for other's needs, motivations and desires.

Now, I hop up onto my soapbox: If you want to "tell lies for fun and profit", declare yourself a fiction writer! Yes, that hoary old humanities cliche that the best fictive stories bring us to a better understanding of ourselves and the world entire is certainly true. But this is no excuse for willfully presenting artfully--or artlessly, as it often turns out--lies as a truthful recounting of past events. (Remember the lovely elderly couple who claimed to have met in a Nazi concentration camp? The wife reportedly kept her beloved alive by "tossing an apple over the barbed wire fence that separated the men's camp from the women's camp daily." :::shudder:::  KARMA, people!) 

Every memoir should be taken with a grain of salt. Memory is unreliable, subjective truth subject to the integrity, intelligence and life-lived experience of the writer. But if I find I'm choking on one-too-many boulders of fantastically-whipped-up sodium I put that book aside and wait a year or two for other reviews and/or investigative journalism to uncover the truths--or rather, lies--I suspect the writer has perpetrated upon a gullible public. 

Another recommendation: http://www.amazon.com/Change-Me-into-Zeuss-Daughter/dp/0743202198/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376015777&sr=8-1&keywords=Change+Me+Into+Zeus%27s+daughter 

--edited by Carl E Reed on 8/10/2013, 2:28 PM--

@Carl--your post is rich with insights and stuff I want to think about . . .

But in the meantime, I love these recommendations. CHANGE ME INTO ZEUS'S DAUGHTER looks like another wonderful book to check out.

Checking out your profile, it looks like you are from the Midwest. Have you ever read A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY? It is one of my favorite memoirs of all time; I adore it. (You don't have to be from the Midwest to enjoy, of course, but because I also grew up in the Midwest, much of the author's childhood really resonated with me--in an LOL kind of way).

I started a Book Country Pinterest board dedicated to memoir--I named it the "Memoiribilia" board.

BC community--keep the recommendations coming, and I will add them to the board!

Question: how is memoir different from autobiography? Does it attempt to be more artistic/literary? 

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I have always been a lover of autobiography, particularly those by cultural icons, late nineteenth/early twentieth century is my preference, full of priceless bits of trivia that I purloin for my own use. Thirty years ago I wrote the biography of a long forgotten silent film star, based on the life of Louise Brooks. Marguerite La Mouse, once at the top of the Hollywood heap, every bit the equal of Swanson and Theda Bara, co-starred in several films with the romantic idol Rudolph Rodentino. You know that name, I expect.

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That masterpiece is long lost, thanks to my messy life and many moves. 

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--edited by Mimi Speike on 8/10/2013, 9:51 PM--