Memoir: An Introduction

by G. Thomas Couser

Each year brings a batch of new memoirs, ranging from works by former teachers and celebrity has-beens to disillusioned soldiers and bestselling novelists. In addition to becoming bestsellers in their own right, memoirs have become a popular object of inquiry in the academy and a mainstay in most MFA workshops. Courses in what is now called "life writing" study memoir alongside personal essays, diaries, and autobiographies. An Introduction proffers a succinct and comprehensive survey of the genre (and its many subgenres) while taking readers through the various techniques, themes, and debates that have come to characterize the ubiquitous literary form. Its fictional origins are traced to eighteenth-century British novels; its early American roots are examined in Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and colonial captivity narratives; and its ethical conundrums are considered via the imbroglios brought on by the questionable claims in Rigoberta Mench?'s I, Rigoberta, and more notoriously, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Alongside these more traditional literary forms, Couser expands the discussion of memoir to include film with what he calls "documemoir" (exemplified in Nathaniel Kahn's My Architect) and graphic narratives like Art Spiegelman's Maus.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Theory

215 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2012

Reviews

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This useful, compact volume includes chapters on the defining characteristics of memoirs, the different forms memoirs take, the ethics of the genre, its American roots, and the contemporary American memoir. Couser also contrasts memoir with other genres (e.g., authorized biography) that are often guided, or even controlled, by the biographical subject, so that, in effect, the authorized biography is a quasi-autobiography or memoir. An extensive works cited will be helpful to those who wish to read more memoirs and books about memoirs. But Couser is not primarily concerned with the considerable scholarship on memoirs. Somewhat surprising is his omission (even in his works cited) of memoirs that are not only controversial but have put into question the nature of the genre. Thus, Lillian's Hellman's celebrated and excoriated memoirs do not even rate a mention, which is puzzling, since one of her works, Pentimento, became a best seller and a movie starring Jane Fonda--and also became the object of scrutiny that provoked considerable public discussion of the fine line between fiction and memoir.

[Jacinta Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Studied memoir for 4 straight years. This is my favourite resource.

[Katrina Sark · Rating 2 out of 5]

p.19 – It may help, too, to remember that the term derives from the French word for memory. This may serve as a mnemonic for understanding memoir as a variety of autobiography; calling a narrative about yourself a memoir usually signal that it is based primarily on memory; a notoriously unreliable and highly selective faculty. In turn, this creates the expectation that the narrative may be impressionistic and subjective rather than authoritatively fact based.

p.23 – And the term makes sense: we can think of autobiography as self-life writing that attempts to do for the author what a biographer would do: write the whole of life.
In contrast, much self-life writing focuses only on a discrete part of the life. Many historically significant life-writing genres fall into the single-experience category – in the United States, narratives of conversion, of Indian captivity, of enslavement, for starters.
So autobiography is more comprehensive, memoir more limited, in scope.

p.24 – Academic refer to these practices collectively as life writing. My experience suggests that this term is not well understood outside of scholarly circles.
I prefer the term life narrative.

p.53 – Admittedly, life writing is undeniably “fictive” (inventive) even when it is not “novelistic” (characterized by direct dialogue and highly detailed scenes). So the boundary between memoir and novel can be difficult, even impossible, to determine. And much of the time, neither the authors, nor publishers, nor readers wish to insist on this boundary.

[Naia Pard · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is a decent book for an introduction.

It does not say never before heard things, it just tries to explain some of the basics (albeit, sometimes it goes too deep into some redundant sidetracks that spoil the overarching argument).

I read it because I needed an author and a title to write down at the refrenced works section in my paper

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[F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Purposefully written by Couser to be very readable and accessible, this is a great introduction to the study of memoirs and autobiographies as well as other forms of life-writing.

[Kiki]

Yeah, sure.