Customer Reviews

The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative

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"The Memoir and the Memoirist" by Thomas Larson is truly a wolf in sheep's clothing. I had thought, given the author's role as a college writing teacher, it would be a mildly interesting manual on the creation and structure of the memoir. It is anything but that. It is a profound meditation on memory and the heroic efforts which our self concept makes to insure that our memories are congruent with whom we seem. Thus, just as the past changes the present, the present also changes the past. In this reciprocal, dynamic process, our authentic self can get diminished, lost or never created. The task of the memoirist is to swim against this enormous current and try to retrieve and enlarge the authentic self.

While this book is not a "how to manual", it is rich in descriptions of memoirs amd memoirists of the last 25 years. As expected, many memoirs concern relationships with parents, spouses and children, but not all. Some relate to occupations or roads not taken or roads that that should not have been taken. The author himself gives us at least three periods of his life, one of which is extremely poignant. Many of us are familiar with being rejected by our parents in favor of a more talented or attractive sibling. We know what that feels like. But what does it feel like to be the favored sib? To feel the sorrow and pain and guilt (even the occasional joy!) of being the one favored? Tom tells us this.

I am particularly fascinated with the Eight Autobiographer's Lies of Andrew Hudgins (Chapter 9) and the dangers of lying to onself in one's own memoir. Given long enough effort and strong desire, the truth will out. A splendid statement of the author is that the memoirist's own emotional, spiritual and intellectual progress will be mirrored in the aesthetic progress of the memoir.

For those strong enough to make the deep and perhaps hazardous journey into self, this extraordinary book, written in lucid prose, serves as a splendid starting point.

Bill Rosen

When I reached the end of this book, without pausing I turned back to page one and began it again. That's because the author put far more thought and insight into this ambitious undertaking than I was able to absorb in one pass.

The modern-day memoir--life stories written by ordinary folks--has vocal detractors. Some dismiss it as facile self-absorption. Others recoil from the lurid sensationalism found in certain examples and extrapolate from that to the whole genre. Thomas Larson, perhaps for the first time, explains here what is really going on in memoir and makes a case for its acceptance, along with the essay, the novel, and other forms, as serious literature.

This book will not tell you how to write your own memoir. However, it WILL help you evaluate your work in terms of its honesty. If you have been penning a simple chronological account of your exploits and mishaps, this book will encourage a deeper analysis. According to Larson, a serious memoirist is disclosing the truth of events and motivations to himself at the same time he discloses it to the reader, is questioning his memory, assumptions, values, and--in the process of reconciling past drama with the present drama of grappling with it--transforming and liberating himself.

This kind of introspection is an entirely different thing from the self-justification found in autobiographies of famous people. Larson finds it healthier, so much so that he ends up recommending it not only for memoirists but for all of us.

The Memoir and The Memoirist is both scholarly and personable. In part, that means it examines what works (and occasionally fails to work) in a number of well-known memoirs. But, as in a memoir, the author is present in the material as well. I was startled to notice a couple of minor errors in his discussion of one memoir (e.g., Laron remembers the author's father as being a Vietnam vet when that book states he served in Korea). I doubt that these subtle slips were intentional, but actually they prove his point: Truth is elusive, memory and assumptions will trip us up all the time. All the more reason for the tentative, self-doubting approach taken in what he feels are the best memoirs.

I expect to read this yet book again, and soon. I so admire what Larson has done with the subject.

Partway through composing my own three-part memoir (the first of which has been published), I began alternately cursing and blessing Tom Larson. Blessings on Larson's brilliant syntheses of the cores of many notable "autobiographies" and his incisive analyses of critical distinctions between them and true "memoirs." Curses on him for convincing me the published part of my memoirs was inadequate in the realm of progressive self-discovery. In the end, however, I celebrate Larson's logical, persuasive, and elegant prose for convincing me to do a better job on the next two parts.

Tom Larson's writing in The Memoir and the Memoirist is so fluid, so natural, he talks to his readers and invites us in. Early on, he begins providing us with important information about writing a memoir and he shares much of his personal life and influence with us. I was moved by his openness. His acknowledgement of his partner is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read and it reveals his goodness and tenderness.

The way Larson presents the material demands the reader's attention, re-awakens the urge to excellence, and inspires and invigorates. After beginning to read before going to sleep, I wanted to devour the book in one swallow. Instead, I lay awake starring into the darkness, having startled myself with the fact that I have less than 20 good writing years left! I wanted to jump out of bed and immediately get to the four manuscripts waiting in line for my undivided attention. I bless Tom Larson for reminding me to say what I have to say and delay no more.

Arleen Lorrance, author of The Two, The Love Principles, India through Eyes of Love, Why Me? How to Heal What's Hurting You?, etc.

Thomas Larson is an erudite, yet friendly author. His book is a must read for budding memoirists, as well as an insightful resource for choosing memoirs to study. This book inspired me to get going and keep going on my own memoir, and helped me choose a direction and identify my theme. He asks questions that I had never thought to ask myself and which yielded rich material for my work.

I've spent five years writing my memoir of military service 40 years ago and also teaching memoir at the college level. Thomas Larson's "The Memoir and the Memoirist" puts today's memoir readers and writers in the context of the development from the "famous person's" Autobiography to our current use of the memoir to make sense of what we (think we) did and how we became who we are now. He's fairly close to the way Patricia Hample describes the twists and turns and syntheses that memory makes, but he adds a nice perspective on how to recognize our authentic selves from the many masks and roles life calls us to take on.

Larson gives detailed examples from his students and from many recent memoir writers. One of his most helpful chapters is about those among us who are stretching the genre into new shapes and patterns.

His musings and analysis seem very up-to-the-minute, though they were published a few years ago. I recommend it highly.

Thomas Larson has written a helpful book for readers and writers of the art of self discovery. Many are working to collect their thoughts about what a life so far might mean. With 300 books published a day in the US, is there anybody out there not writing down their life story? Who cares. Beats the hell out of paying $100 an hour to a therapist.

Larson has provided helpful tools here. He's read over 100 contemporary memoirs himself and taught many a class full of budding writers on the business of memoir. He writes of the genre as largely an American cathartic event that has birthed itself in the last two decades, shaking off the untrusting helicopter parent of autobiography from the time of Augustine's Confessions forward. I like how the author loads up on context and notes other works on memoir writing.

Most helpful for me was the simple truth that reads like a refrain throughout the book, namely that self discovery and truth telling is a process. Yes, just how does the writer writing today capture the writer living yesterday? How to get the fellow in the lens to stand still long enough to catch more than a blur. And who's more real? The shooter or the shootee? Or maybe the blur?

The context for self chasing self is where Larson helps most. He lets us see that the evolving self and person of ten years ago is just as real as the evolving self doing the observing today. He focuses as much on the memoirist as he does the memoir form. Yes, how one can the guy taking the Polaroid of the self get the subject to stand still long enough to capture more than fuzz? Larson helps us see how the me now and the me then can both come out and play and tell the truth together. This is the "finding your voice" thing writers struggle with. Larson helps here, why neither one quite stands still and why it is OK.

I liked also how he dealt with the whole James Frey thing about truth,"truthiness", wiggle room and the full out lie in memoir. He muses well on Frey as archetypal memoir maker upper. Larson's disdainful thoughts on the practice of stretching the truth are insightful, like Frey's three hour jail experience stretched to 87 days and how this "5% wiggle room" on fact cancels out for most of us any emotional truth a writer might hope to get down on paper.

Larson started out thinking his life was about music, creating and performing music. What he finds out about the business of writing about writing about a life lived is that his destiny is more perhaps that of a director and coach of the story tellers out there. He's become a specialist on the memoir form through his reading and teaching and now, writing this book. Thankfully he let go of his job as a college professor of literature to direct traffic for those of us driving around looking for just how to get our lives to stand still long enough to write about them.

Of the four or five books I've read on writing memoir, Larson's was the most helpful; probably because he went beyond the how to approach to what getting it down might mean as a spiritual path. I'd recommend this book as the first read to take in if you are attempting moving from journaling to book and memoir writing or if you simply enjoy reading the meaning of lives lived well and put down on paper.

I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend. It is superb! I am in the process of memoir writing myself and this book has opened up many avenues for me to pursue. I have a greater understanding of what memoir writing is all about.

I bought this book to research and share with members of a Memoir Club. Have to say it was sparse on technique but rich in esoteric exploration of the delicacies of memoir writing -- telling the truth, what is the truth? understanding that self-critical and externally critical voices can interfere with writing memoir, etc. It was very thought provoking, albeit narrow in scope. LMR