![]() ![]() Although Chung’s story is unique, her writing about belonging, parenting, and connection is widely relatable. For starters, it gave me the inspiration to interview my kindergarten teacher, my sixth-grade girlfriend, and, later, my family.Ĭhung, an Atlantic contributing writer, tells her story of transracial adoption and reconnection with her biological family in her excellent debut memoir. This book influenced my own memoir in many ways. The work is profoundly honest-he doesn’t exactly portray himself as a hero. When he and Donald speak about this event decades later, Donald remembers it quite differently: “I never owned a gun … I think you might have had it.” Carr goes deep on the complexities of marriage and fatherhood, and offers a portrait of the ever-changing newspaper industry. Take the titular example: Carr recounts a particularly grim night when he showed up high at the house of his friend Donald, who was menacingly holding a gun. ![]() As you would imagine, these conversations are revelatory. Crucially, he probes the validity of his own memory: He uses his training as a journalist to interview individuals from all corners of his past. What does it take to try to bring those past events to life on a page? As I learned while writing my memoir, Life on Delay, it requires interrogating what we thought we knew, both through research and talking with other people-the nonfiction subgenre known as “reported memoirs.” These six books are some of the finest of the form.Ĭarr, the late New York Times media columnist, published the definitive reported memoir in 2008 when he set out to investigate his life-going straight at his history with substance abuse. Frequently, the writer’s biggest revelations uncover, or unlock, something the audience didn’t know was inside of them. Some of the strongest memoirs don’t just describe how something happened they reveal something larger about the world the author and the reader share-even if they don’t know they share it. Memories aren’t merely scenes they’re microscopic moments: powder sticking to your fingers after scarfing a funnel cake, holding your right arm out of the passenger window to feel it bounce in the wind, the hilarious whine of middle-school voices singing along with Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder. The best don’t work solely from the author’s biased, Hollywood-style recollections, where every character is either “good” or “bad.” Lives, and memories, are more complicated than that. If and when you venture down this particular writing path, you’ll quickly discover that memoirs are not diaries. “Uhh … me … it’s about me … my life … it’s a memoir.” The truth is, it’s never not a little embarrassing when someone hears that you’re writing a book and asks you what it’s about. Or worse, perhaps this voice sounds like your own, the most insecure and anxious version of you. Maybe it’s the voice of an old acquaintance whose respect you once craved. Sometimes you hear that taunt in your head late at night as you try and fail to sleep. Every memoir author eventually confronts the same question: Who cares? ![]()
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