Thomas Whaley's Blog - Posts Tagged "family-relationships"
MASKED MEMOIRS?
Over the last several months, I've had amazing & enlightening experiences with dozens of readers attending my Leaving Montana book signings and discussions. I have also enjoyed reading the reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N, and so forth...However, one thing has come up recently that I found so forthright and true that I felt the need to communicate. One reader wrote:
"...as I read Leaving Montana, my intuition kept telling me that it was much more than literary fiction...the emotions were so believable, almost "memoirish"
So, this reader actually asked what so many people have been wondering but were too uncomfortable to ask...always asking questions that ALMOST got there, but dodged what their gut was dying to know.
Leaving Montana, although deemed literary fiction, is based on four decades of true life family turmoil. Autobiographical, in many ways, a memoir easily disguised as literary fiction with the perfect seasoning of assumed dialogue and precise sprinkling of levity to make moments easier to swallow.
So, my question:
Are most compelling works of literary fiction masking real life experiences that the author has self-encountered or witnessed?
Do we, as writers, find it easier to tag a book "litfic" because we still don't want to fully acknowledge what we've experienced?
Are we afraid to be tagged a "victim"?
Today was the very first time a reader/reviewer didn't play dodge-ball with their thoughts. It made me sit back and contemplate a decision I made when it was time to decide what genre Leaving Montanashould fall under.
Call it literary fiction.
Call it memoir.
Call it fictional memoir for all I care! Fact is...if it makes you change your way of thinking or helps you self-reflect, then believe your intuition.
I did.
http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Montana...
"...as I read Leaving Montana, my intuition kept telling me that it was much more than literary fiction...the emotions were so believable, almost "memoirish"
So, this reader actually asked what so many people have been wondering but were too uncomfortable to ask...always asking questions that ALMOST got there, but dodged what their gut was dying to know.
Leaving Montana, although deemed literary fiction, is based on four decades of true life family turmoil. Autobiographical, in many ways, a memoir easily disguised as literary fiction with the perfect seasoning of assumed dialogue and precise sprinkling of levity to make moments easier to swallow.
So, my question:
Are most compelling works of literary fiction masking real life experiences that the author has self-encountered or witnessed?
Do we, as writers, find it easier to tag a book "litfic" because we still don't want to fully acknowledge what we've experienced?
Are we afraid to be tagged a "victim"?
Today was the very first time a reader/reviewer didn't play dodge-ball with their thoughts. It made me sit back and contemplate a decision I made when it was time to decide what genre Leaving Montanashould fall under.
Call it literary fiction.
Call it memoir.
Call it fictional memoir for all I care! Fact is...if it makes you change your way of thinking or helps you self-reflect, then believe your intuition.
I did.
http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Montana...
