Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, Revised and Expanded Edition (Paperback)

by Annie Dillard (Author), Russell Baker (Author), Jill Ker Conway (Author), Ian Frazier (Author), Jr. Henry Louis Gates (Author), Alfred Kazin (Author), Toni Morrison (Author), Eileen Simpson (Author), William Zinsser (Editor) "This is the age of the memoir..." (more)
Key Phrases: five boyhoods, New York, Civil War, Colored People (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Every time Inventing the Truth appears in a new edition, editor William Zinsser can't help but add to it. The first edition (1987) evolved from a series of New York Public Library talks, for which the mandate was not to lecture about the genre of the memoir but to explain how a specific memoir came to be written. In the book's 1995 edition, Russell Baker, Annie Dillard, Alfred Kazin, and Toni Morrison were joined by Jill Ker Conway, Eileen Simpson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Ian Frazier. This time around, Zinsser has added a rich and charming reminiscence by Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes).

The authors do stick to their assignment: Russell Baker credits his huge family with helping him "learn a lot about humanity from close-up observation"; Jill Ker Conway talks about her desire to write a female memoir that was not a romantic happily-ever-after; and Henry Louis Gates Jr. discusses "want[ing] to write a book that imitated the specialness of black culture when no white people are around." But there is also plenty of advice for writers here, and some general thoughts about the genre. Conway addresses the difficulty of "going back as a historian" and trying to understand "all the things you took as a given when you were a child." Gates warns us to "be prepared for the revelation of things you don't even dream are going to come up." And Annie Dillard contemplates the strangeness of spending "more time writing about [a scene or an event] than you did living it." --Jane Steinberg --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Russell Baker, in writing his memoirs, left out a principal characterhis motherin the first draft. After much torment, he realized that "although nobody's life makes any sense . . . you might as well make it into a story." The six essays in this symposium explore the craft of memoir, defined here as a portion of a life, narrower in scope than autobiography. Annie Dillard argues that the best memoirs forge their own forms. Toni Morrison describes how slave narratives have influenced her work. New York's streets gave Alfred Kazin "physical images, straight from the belly," which he shaped into his self-portrait, A Walker in the City. Lewis Thomas weaves reflections on human adaptability, memory and evolution. In his introductory essay, Zinsser discusses why a good memoir is also a work of history, capturing a distinctive moment in the life of a society.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 2nd revise & expanded edition (September 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395731011
• ISBN-13: 978-0395731017
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,180,216 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-Read, December 14, 1999

By	Kitty Axelson-Berry "Modern Memoirs, Inc." (Amherst, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (Paperback)

This is a must-read for anyone embarking on a memoirs project because it helps clarifying the question of WHOSE truths can and should be expressed in a memoirs. As the president of Modern Memoirs, a private publishing firm that specializes in personal memoirs and family histories, I am constantly recommending it to clients and their families. It's especially useful when one member of the family wants THEIR version of the truth to supercede the memoirist's own version. Good companion to Tristine Rainer's excellent The New Autobiography, and Richard Stone's The Sacred Art of Storytelling.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're thinking about writing memoir, September 25, 2000

By	Joan Mazza "Author, speaker, poet" (Mineral, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (Paperback)

In INVENTING THE TRUTH, several memoirists offer their viewpoints on writing about one's life. Each author talks about the process of discovering different ways to tell their own stories and then subjecting their stories to a critical analysis, understanding that it might be told differently. They consider how the author knows too much and must distill this glut of information into a dramatic, readable narrative that will hold a reader. That means using many of the techniques of fiction, but also being true to the events. The examples prompted me to buy several of the memoirs discussed. This book would be very helpful for anyone considering writing a memoir and it's a terrific cross-section of the genre for anyone wanting to read some of the best. ~Joan Mazza, author of DREAM BACK YOUR LIFE, DREAMING YOUR REAL SELF, and 3 books in The Guided Journal Series with Writer's Digest.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars On Writing a Memoir, December 7, 2000

By	Katie McCabe (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (Paperback)

According to Webster, the definition of memoir is "a biographical sketch, usually one written by someone who knows the subject well." It is from the Latin word memoria, meaning memory. But in Inventing the Truth, Annie Dillard says, "Don't hope in a memoir to preserve your memories. If you prize your memories as they are by all means avoid--eschew--writing a memoir" (70). Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir is a sort of instructional anthology composed of six chapters written by six authors. The purpose of this book, edited and introduced by William Zinsser, is to give writers different perspectives on how to write a memoir. If you are writing a memoir, or even just thinking about writing one, this book will be helpful to you. It contains examples of good memoir writing, advice on what to put in and what to leave out, and an overview of the process of writing a memoir. The advice given by William Zinsser and the other five contributors to Inventing the Truth pertains mostly to organizing memories. Annie Dillard's chapter entitled "To Fashion a Text" is very focused on memoir writing, and would not prove useful to the average Joe. However, Lewis Thomas' chapter called "A Long Line of Cells" would be interesting for anyone to read. Unless you are thinking about writing a memoir, this book probably will not entirely interest you.