Memoir as Fantasy
Hello. In case you weren’t aware, there is a new tell-all memoir out called Spare. Have you heard of it?
I’m actually finding my way back to memoirs **, but it’s not really the type of book I post about here unless it’s sort of an “artful” memoir like Homesick by Jennifer Croft. (That book was really unique and spectacular.) If I were to read a novel that was just linear revelation after linear revelation or shocking event after shocking event, I’d be bored out of my noggin. (“And one time, at band camp…”) But if it’s true? Ok, sign me up.
Why do real stories titillate us so much? Take, for instance, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. There is so much to be enthralled by: a poverty-marked nomadic childhood throughout the American Southwest and then the mining town of Welch, West Virginia, parents who actively choose homelessness upon arrival in NYC, and an overcoming-the-odds degree from Barnard and subsequent gig as a gossip columnist at New York magazine. I gobbled this book right up — in fact, I think it’s time for a re-read. Would I have read The Glass Castle in one fell swoop if it were fiction? I’m not so sure. Am I going to read Spare once the 913 library patrons in front of me are done? You betcha. Does a novel about a make-believe royal family sound appealing to me? Not really.
Fiction writers have to walk a fine line. Too outlandish, and readers are peacing out because it’s “unrealistic”; too mundane, and readers wonder what the point is. I don’t read fantasy, but maybe at its core, it’s *memoir* that is the ultimate fantasy…a topsy-turvy sneak peek into a different world.
** What I have on the docket: Surrender by Bono and Shy by Mary Rodgers (composer of Once Upon a Mattress, author of Freaky Friday [yes!], and daughter of Richard Rodgers [you know, Rodgers and Hammerstein]). (Thank you, Holly, for that last reco!)
PS: Feel free to hit me up with your memoir/biography suggestions!
Edit:
These were mentioned by followers in the comment section of the original Instagram post:
The Color of Water, James McBride
A Girl Named Zippy, Haven Kimmel
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner
The Storyteller, Dave Grohl
Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire
Personal History, Katharine Graham
Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson
Everyday Matters, Nardi Reeder Campion
A Primate’s Memoir, Robert Sapolsky
Educated, Tara Westover
Wintering, Katherine May
Wilding, Isabella Tree
Homing, Jon Day
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson
How to End A Story: Collected Diaries, Helen Garner
originally published on instagram