I have been fascinated by this debate in the past. Bookstores do not even know the difference between non-fiction and memoir. Just try asking them. And now we learn that apparently publishers do not either.
Last night James Frey was on Larry King Live. He admitted that he made up details in his book, A Million Little Pieces, but was not apologetic enough for my taste. Whether he thinks he did something wrong or not is not the issue here. Some of his fans are disappointed in him and the least he could have done was seem remourseful and not so damn annoyed by all of this. Being in a relationship with him must be tough since he is clearly not the apologizing sort. Of course, it did not help that Larry King asked him some of the worst questions ever! He was really off. He was worse than when my beloved Charlie Rose had Julia Roberts on. He was that bad.
Towards the end of the show, Oprah called in. This call was a "surprise" to most but not to me. Oprah ain't no punk. She's gonna make her opinion known and not via publicists. She said it was up to publishers, whom she said she relied on to document the authenticity of a book, to decide what rules govern memoirs and how they differ from other forms of nonfiction. She felt this whole thing honestly was much ado about nothing.
I did not know there was a difference between non-fiction and memoir. If memoir was a genre onto itself, why is there no memoir section at Barnes and Nobles? It seemed to me to be a variation on the autobiography genre, a member of the non-fiction family.
In The Times today, they quoted Nan A. Talese who runs the Nan A. Talese imprint at the Doubleday unit of Random House and who published Mr. Frey's book as saying memoir cannot be held to the same standard as history or biography. "Nonfiction is not a single monolithic category as defined by the best-seller list. Memoir is personal recollection. It is not absolute fact. It's how one remembers what happened. That is different from history and criticism and biography, and they cannot be measured by the same yardstick."
So where does this leave personal essays? And doesn't creative non-fiction pretty much follow the same rules as memoirs. I know it's all semantics but why create these categories at all then if the meanings are so unclear!
I saw that last night! I started watching just as Oprah phoned in.
I've been meaning to read that book. I wonder what bits are embellished.
I agree, it seems to be much ado about nothing. I can't imagine that I'd feel differently after I've read the book. I sort of expect parts to embellished.
I think the freedom to embellish is exactly what separates memoir/creative nonfiction and history/non-fiction/biographies.
I have no doubt that there are embellishments in Frank McCourt's books. He received a lot of criticism from the Irish for making Limerick sound so much uglier than it really was. But in his mind, in his memory -- maybe it was that ugly for him? Maybe not? Maybe it just fit with the story?
WHO CARES!
People are silly.
Posted by: maura | January 13, 2006 at 09:27 AM
I don;'t think anyone expects every detail in memoirs to be tru anyway. WHo has a perfect memory, you know? And as long as it's entertaining, who really cares?
Posted by: Quel | January 14, 2006 at 11:16 AM