A Reflection on the Memoir as a Literary Genre

 

The Memoir as a Literary Genre 

In G. Thomas Couser’s Memoir: An Introduction, the scholar observes that one distinguishing element of the memoir is that the reader approaches the literary genre for the “wisdom and self-knowledge” derived from the author’s journey. 

The reader’s attention shifts from style or form to explore the writer’s journey from who they were to who they are now, how they make sense of events in their lives, in addition to the values and challenges that have shaped the writer. A memoir is therefore a recollection of impactful memories in the writer’s life, which is usually very personal writing that calls to the reader’s emotions; its appeal lies in the nourishment the writer’s journey provides, which comprises of the wisdom and awareness that the main character experiences throughout the book. 

From the other books I have read, from literary fiction to poems, the memoir stands out for the intimacy it creates between the narrator and the reader, often through a moving personal story. For example, in Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss, the writer relays a very personal story of incest between herself and her estranged father. While the narrative tells of the “seduction” of the father, it truly reveals the extent to which the controversial relationship with the father damaged Harrison’s psyche. She tells the reader that she would have done anything the father asked of her, simply because she had always yearned for his presence in her life from childhood. Unfortunately, as he walks back into her life when she enters young adulthood, he is not the idealized father she created in her mind, and his abusive and controlling nature takes hold of Harrison’s life. In this narrative, Harrison’s willingness to open up and talk about an intimate and taboo subject that shaped her young adulthood is the key to the personal connection that the book finds with the reader. 

Given the personal stories and engaging writing, the importance of memoirs as a literary genre cannot be understated. The main functions of the memoir are telling true, personal stories that inspire the reader to consider important social issues and questions, in addition to exploring significant themes that require the reader’s engagement. 

Before looking at the deeper significance of a memoir, it is important that the writing simply tells an engaging story. To attract and hold the reader’s attention, a good memoir should read like an intriguing life, which can be happy, comical, sad, and unconventional, but all the same highly relatable and inspiring. This can be seen in Harrison’s story, as well as Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City dealing with the contentious father-son relationship that shaped his adulthood experience. While Harrison’s story contains a disturbing and traumatizing incestuous father-daughter relationship, it captures the reader’s attention since it is a well-written personal story, albeit sad and unconventional. She speaks candidly of her fears and insecurities regarding her controlling father whom she was afraid she would give whatever he asked of her. However, she is not analytical of these soul-crushing interactions; rather, she leaves the onus on the reader to follow and try to both understand and empathize with her experience. 

Similarly, Flynn weaves an intriguing story that is both depressing and optimistic. His struggle to resolve the paternal wound that has affected his life till adulthood leads to calamitous events, including addiction, criminal behavior, dropping out of college, and loneliness. While the writing is fragmented, it is deeply relatable to the reader given the prevalence of estranged familial relationships and the persistent struggle to heal these wounds. By writing these stories, the writers capture and inspire the reader to consider the central themes or questions which are not explicitly announced, but are unquestionably urgent for reflection. In the aforementioned memoirs, for instance, the reader is directed to reflect on the relationship between fathers and their children, where markedly different interactions in the father-daughter and father-son relationships result in some similarities in the insecurities they create among children, and the struggle to heal paternal wounds that may never be completely healed. 

While the main attraction to the memoir is the writer’s journey and the wisdom they gain along the way, what surprised me about this genre, especially reading Flynn’s story, is that literary form can also be an influential part of the memoir. Flynn’s memoir is written in short and irregular chapters that narrate his life experience from 1956 to 2003 in an unchronological format. He centers his story on his estranged relationship with his father Jonathan, where the challenges he experiences as he enters adulthood are relayed in a fragmented style that makes the book unpredictable. The fragmented form reflects divisions and contradictions that go against convention. This implies that the narrator’s reality is disjointed and unconventional, which is clear in Flynn’s struggle with drug addiction, homelessness, the alienation from his father, and the general lack of purpose or direction. The literary form in the memoir can essentially play an important role in shaping the narrator’s story through a series of events that guide the reader to new insights about the subject’s life. 

Another surprising element of the memoir is that the writer can also subvert the autobiographical elements of the genre, such as the commitment to the truth or facts that personalize a story. Lauren Slater achieves this in Lying, where she draws the reader to her lived experience as an epileptic but also cautions against the reliability of the narrator. She says that she exaggerates things which makes the reader uncertain or disconcerted by the truth she presents as well as the metaphorical depictions in her story. Nevertheless, just like Harrison’s memoir, the reader plays a part in traumatic witnessing since they are drawn in to engage in the writer’s experience despite the hints of unreliability. 

Reflecting on the memoir as a genre, there is a duality in its openness which I find both valuable and unattractive depending on the subject matter. On one hand, the personal and open nature of the writing in memoirs is valuable to the genre since it mainly aims to intimately connect to the reader. Openness implies that, unlike other genres, the memoir writer narrates a story through a series of events in their past that are deeply personal and sometimes so private that other people would not be willing to share. A personalized story also requires vivid details of the tension or conflict that plagued or continues to plague the writer in their life. A good example of openness or candidness in writing is Harrison’s memoir which recounts an incestuous relationship between the writer and her father. Harrison is open and blunt in her recollection of the dire relationship, including vivid details of her father’s sexual interest in her, his forceful kissing at the airport that irreversibly transformed their father-daughter relationship, and the inevitable consummation of their incestuous relationship. The writer weaves a complex web of despair, anger, and desperation for parental love that captures the reader’s attention and empathy for the narrator. 

However, the openness in memoirs can also be unappealing to the reader especially when uncomfortable subjects are at the heart of the writing. In Harrison’s memoir, I found that the same openness that draws the reader in can be a source of discomfort or dread towards the inevitable recollection of a sexual relationship with her father. From the descriptions of kissing and sexual intercourse to the details about her father’s controlling nature that he even took nude photographs of his own daughter, the reader is put through an uncomfortable read that they can do nothing else but try to understand Harrison’s emotional turmoil. Compared to other literary genres, it can be argued that the openness in memoirs can at times be unappealing if it overwhelms the reader with uncomfortable writing. 

Notwithstanding the discomforts of the genre, the memoir is deeply significant for connecting readers to a life outside their lived experience, and in the process, it reconciles individual feelings within a wider spectrum. Through the memoirs of Harrison, Slater, and Flynn, there are subjects of deeper significance that the writers invite their readers to explore through a series of personal recollections. Harrison is particularly open in her writing which can be quite uncomfortable but also fosters a unique writer-reader intimacy that captures the reader’s attention to consider the pains of parental neglect beyond the book. Similarly, Flynn’s story is one of paternal wounds told through a fragmented but provocative style that shows how he tries to make sense of his mixed emotions towards his father ranging from loyalty and guilt to anger and revulsion. For Slater, who takes a different route in subverting the expected truthfulness of memoirs, she still invites the reader to engage in her experience just like Harrison and Flynn only that the witnessing of her trauma can unsettle the reader because of both factual and metaphorical elements in the narrative. 

Overall, the memoir allows the writer to reflect on events that shaped or transformed their lives and they bring the reader along this journey so that they too may explore the deeper significance of the recounted events.