In this perfect companion for anyone beguiled by memoirs or embarking on writing one, nine distinguished authors -- Russell Baker, Jill Ker Conway, Annie Dillard, Ian Frazier, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alfred Kazin, Frank McCourt, Toni Morrison, and Eileen Simpson -- reflect on the writing process.
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
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To learn by example from experts:
As a personal and corporate biographer, I hear many different life stories and have learned that no one approach or format fits all. This collection of essays is a splendid example of how different individuals see their lives in their own ways. The essays together also serve to reassure any would-be memoirist that there is no one Right Way to write about your life experiences. When I was very young, I read Dr. Zhivago and wrote a fan letter to the author, Boris Pasternak. In his response, he wrote to me:... more info
Can't Say It Better Than Zin!:
Zinsser is a Zen master when it comes to memoir writing. The introduction to this book is nothing short of a tour de force. It inspires, articulates, and deconstructs the myths and perils of memoir writing. The title, INVENTING THE TRUTH, is well crafted because the book addresses the ardous task of conflating truth and memory. One caveat this book is not an easy read for high school students; in fact it is nearly inaccessible, however, a teacher or memorist could glean invaluable experience on the craft of... more info
So you want to write a memoir?:
Memoir writers Russell Baker, Annie Dillard, Alfred Kazin, Toni Morrison, and Lewis Thomas share their thoughts on writing memoir. The chapters are taken from a series of talks given on the subject.
The authors point out that memoir is not biography. The hardest thing about writing memoir, they agree, is not deciding what to put in, but what to leave out.
They point to Emerson, Thoreau, Twain, and each other as models of good memoir writers.
Annie Dillard says that she writes memoir to fashion a... more info
Capturing Memories:
Capturing Your Memories In the book Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Writing a Memoir William Zinsser along with other well renown authors take the reader through the writing process of a memoir. The book is divided into six sections individually composed by each author. In their own words they describe how to create a memoir that will be interesting, fluid, and accurate. A memoir is not just the facts as they are, but the facts as you experienced them. There are many other pieces of... more info
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