Memoirs are not written by people who are young. Usually a person, is over the age of 30 and has gone through a harrowing personal time that has caused them the need to share this experience with every literary person they can get their hands on. Older people are the ones who write the stories.
Everyone has heard their grandparent tell them a story that they've already heard ten million bazillion times. But every time they hear it again, something changes. Maybe they didn't save a fuzzy little kitten from a tree, but actually a little girl. No, wait! They helped an older woman cross the street or donate $903845730948573 to the local Boy Scout troop. Memories change with age.
Memoirs come from memory. Of course memory will never be 100% accurate. It will always be perturbed by something. Something will cause it to change. As Mr. Coates said, even the dialogue in the
Glass Castle is made up. She undoubtedly could not remember every single word that was said with the proper inflections and then able to recall it within a moment.
Therefore a memoir will never be truly accurate. But on the count of Frey, it seems he made a simple mistake. I believe that everyone blew it out of proportion. It originally was a story, but because he couldn't get anyone to publish it, he fudged a word. Called it a memoir. I think it could have been reprinted without the cover letter and just the single phrase "Based on a true story.
Yes it's okay for them to be called half-truths. Nothing is the full truth. So therefore, there should be no memoirs at all. Just title the book with the author's name and claim "This is what I think happened. But I might be wrong, so I cannot call this a memoir."
They made a mistake of lying to the publisher. But calling everything a lie? Wrong. That doesn't call into question their being or character.
No comments:
Post a Comment