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That Is The Question

Sep 22, 2017
by Caroline Miller
"Travels with Charlie, fiction and memoirs, Innocents Abroad, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Mary Karr, The Art of the Memoir, writing memoir
2 Comments

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a memoir. Not the story of my life.  Nothing is so extraordinary in my existence that it merits a book.  But a booklet about my four years abroad might be of interest to others.  I left for Europe in the early 1960s and returned nearly four years later, having wandered beyond the west into much of central and eastern Africa — a time when that part of the continent was morphing from colony status into independent nations, their freedom achieved by violent means on occasion.  

What holds me back is that I know nothing about writing a memoir. My novel, Heart Land is promoted as a fictional memoir, but it’s chock full of made up adventures meant to put a boy of  eleven through the rigors of growing up.   Unfortunately, life doesn’t come in bundled chapters that are organized around a theme, so I’m uncertain about the skills needed to succeed in writing a personal reflection.  I could take a course, I suppose.  Most of the offerings I’ve seen, however, are about writing a family history and not aimed for the commercial market where I’m headed.  My goal might be lofty, but I’d like to write a memoir akin to Mark Twain’s, Innocents Abroad or John  Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie.   

Mary Karr, author of The Liar’s Club, has published a book on the subject entitled, appropriately, The Art of Memoir.  According to one critic, Karr’s piece comes as close to presenting a unified theory of how the genre works as anyone ever did. (The Week, October 2, 2015, pg. 21.)  One of her strictures is to be brutally honest. “Only the greatest truth-seeker can write a universal story.” (Ibid pg. 21)

If her stricture about truth isn’t daunting enough, one of her reviewers offers another. Karr succeeds as a writer of memoirs, he writes, because she makes readers feel “honored to live inside her skin for as long as she allows it.” (Ibid, pg. 21.)  Few achieve that height, I suspect.  As much as I enjoyed Travels with Charlie,  I never wanted to be Steinbeck.  

When I think about the difference between memoir and fiction, I see little. Memoirs purport to be true;  but fiction must have truth to touch a reader. Memoirs instruct and entertain.  So does fiction.  To be honest, the line between memoir and fiction seems to be narrow enough to  render it invisible.

Perhaps I should be asking another question. Do I have anything to say?  

(Originally posted 11/17/15)

 

The Art of the Memoir

Courtesy of amazon.com

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2 Comments
  1. ALC November 17, 2015 at 10:54 am Reply
    Go for it! You always have something to say that is worth reading.
    • Caroline Miller November 17, 2015 at 11:13 am Reply
      Don't we all!

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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