The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again

by Sven Birkerts

The Art Of series is a new line of books reinvigorating the practice of craft and criticism. Each book will be a brief, witty, and useful exploration of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry by a writer impassioned by a singular craft issue. The Art Of volumes will provide a series of sustained examinations of key but sometimes neglected aspects of creative writing by some of contemporary literature's finest practioners.

In The Art of Time in Memoir , critic and memoirist Sven Birkerts examines the human impulse to write about the self. By examining memoirs such as Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory ; Virginia Woolf's unfinished A Sketch of the Past ; and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club , Birkerts describes the memoirist's essential art of assembling patterns of meaning, stirring to life our own sense of past and present.

Genres: Writing, Memoir, Nonfiction, Crafts, Books About Books, Literary Criticism, School

120 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 2007

About the author

Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies, which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture."

Birkerts graduated from Cranbrook School and then from the University of Michigan in 1973. He has taught writing at Harvard University, Emerson College, Amherst College, and most recently at Mount Holyoke College. Birkerts is the Director of the Bennington College Writing Seminars and the editor of AGNI, the literary journal. He now lives in the Boston area, specifically Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife Lynn, daughter Mara, and son Liam.

His father is noted architect Gunnar Birkerts.

Reviews

[Nick Grammos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this a couple of months ago, so I'm working from memory, what I will say is probably tainted by time and other narrative processes.

It's probably best that I never read another book-about-books. They are unsatisfying, not in the way an unsatisfying books of fiction or memoirs can be - for their own reasons that are far more interesting than a book-about-books can ever be.

A title like 'The Art of" suggests a kind of hand book, a guide book, that sort of thing. The problem with such a book is the same each time. It's always better to take guidance directly. And it's always better to read the books-it's-about. Speak Memory gets a regular mention. A terrific book, because of how good Nabokov can write. And that is all you really need to know. But you have to read it.

I suppose then books-about-books serve their purpose. Someone had to write about a book to introduce the author. Which is what we all do here. Though some people are mad as hell reviewers, others vengeful, enough are illuminating if you move with the right crowd. Thankfully I've found a few.

Birkits doesn't mention Bunuel's memoir; a book I found fascinating, partly because Bunuel questions the merits of truth and memory. Birkits mentions self-discovery a fair bit, which is the least interesting motive for reading a memoir. I prefer just a good read, whether true or not. I discovered few self-discoveries in Bunuel, which suited me well.

I kind of read this because I notice there are so many memoirs out there. Can there be that much of interest in so many lives that we need to read about them? So many memoirs feel like little celebrity victories. I always prefer fiction, at least it doesn't pretend.

I wonder if any of us has enough time to work out the narrative threads of our own lives. Perhaps it's best not to be confused by the lives of others. But then, I know we model ourselves on others and even jealously emulate the lives of others - hey that would be a great memoir sub-genre - a self-expose on one's own life models.

Start with Speak Memory, then Virginia Wolf, then Tobias Wolf, then Bunuel. And if you don't finish your memoir, then you've read a few good memoirs of intelligent artists. That should be enough.

It's not all bad, some might find it useful.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading the NY Times Problem with Memoirs and think that Genzlinger weighted his review with the three worst examples of memoir he could find, while Birkerts made me want to run out and grab a whole stack of other memoirs. So I would respond to Genzlinger, that I know and am persuaded by Birkerts that no life is interesting in and of itself, but in the hands of her that writes well it is interesting. Or something. That formulation doesn't quite work. I did like Genzlinger's rule of thumb about "If you didn't feel you were discovering something as you wrote your memoir, don't publish it." I suspect that that much Birkerts would agree with, since he writes

For example, I may reflect in therapy on an unhappy period of my adolescence, testing memories and looking for insights that will help me understand why I did what I did then. To convert this into memoiristic material, however, I need to give the reader both the unprocessed feeling of the world as I saw it then and a reflective vantage point that incorporates or suggests that these events made a different kind of sense over time. This is the transformation that, if done well, absolves a memoiristic reflection from the charge of self-involved navel-gazing. What makes the difference is not only the fact of reflective self-awareness, but the conversion of private and public by way of a narrative compelling the interest and engagement of the reader. The act of storytelling -- even if the story is an account of psychological self-realization -- is by its very nature an attempt at universalizing the specific; it assumes there is a shared ground between the teller and the audience. Storytelling fails when the narrative cannot coax sympathetic resonance from the listener.

What I'll take away from this book, besides the reading list, of course, is an awareness in reading memoir (and yes, probably in writing the occasional memoir-flavored blog entry) of the interplay of time perspectives, the interaction of present self and past self. That my natural gravitation toward the "lyrical memoirists" that Birkerts lists -- Nabokov, Dillard, Woolf -- has something to do with the fascination with memory and sense of self and not merely my own memories or my own self -- I have a squirmy relationship with that sort of attention, in fact, but that in any kind of writing done well specific instantiations point towards universal truths in a more vivid (truthful?) way than trying to speak in generic or abstract universals could. And I try to keep in therapy the things that belong in therapy, but it was a bit of a relief to discover that to use the present as a safe platform from which to dive into the past doesn't in fact require that the present self has everything all neatly stitched up and resolved but that it can offer a part of the truth to the past self just as the past self holds clues to understanding the present self, and the quest after truth and wholeness wants a veritable congress of past and present selves.

Says Birkerts "The point -- the glory -- of memoir is that it anchors its authority in the actual life; it is a modeling of the process of creative self-inquiry as it is applied to the stuff of lived experience. This really happened is the baseline contention of the memoir, and the fascination of the work -- apart from the interest we have in what is told -- is in tracking the artistic transformation of the actual via the alchemy of psychologica insight, pattern recognition and lyrical evocation into a contained saga." This is the perfect rebuttal, I think to my husband's assertion "Isn't memoir just the reality tv of literature?"

Memoir returns to the past, investigating causes in the light of their known effects, conjuring the unresolved mysteries of fate verus chance, free will versus determinism. To read the life of another person put before us in this way is inevitably to repossess something of ourselves. The writer's then and now stir to life our own sense of past and present. So long as we believe ourselves to be living in the direction of meaning, memoir will never not be coming into its own, fresh and startling.

yes.

[Kristina Amelong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to understand how to work with all of time in your writing?
Read this!
I am continuously reading this book.

[Dona's Books]

DNF

Pre-Read Notes:

Part of my kill-my-tbr project, in which I'm reading all my physical, unread books by drawing them from a hat!

I have several books on writing. Guess this is the first one!

Final Review

I decided to stop reading this one because I wasn't enjoying it. And since I couldn't find an accessible copy anywhere, I had to read a paper book, which is hard for me. Birkerts is renowned in literary circles, as the editor of the bold and contemporary literary journal, AGNI. He is also a memoirist. What I mean is, I think what we have here is a me problem. I couldn’t parse out the lessons from this writing book either, because I was fighting with it so much.

Read this if you want a heavy discussion of memoir and its making, which is often trauma, but also the element under discussion: time. Even though I did not finish this one, I still recommend it for current or aspiring memoirists.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. Birkerts doesn't really hide his disdain for contemporary pop writing, like celebrity or abuse memoirs. It comes up first right in the introduction.

Rating: DNF
Recommend? yes
Finished: Dec 29 '25

I have a paperback copy of THE ART OF TIME IN MEMOIR: THEN, AGAIN by author Sven Birkerts, published by Graywolf Press. All views are mine.
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[Ann Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent volume in this series. Sven Birkerts describes memoir as a way of using "the vantage point of the present to gain access to what might be called the hidden narrative of the past." As he explains, "The search for patterns and connections is the real point -- and glory -- of memoir."

[Therese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Birkerts focusses exclusively on memoir writing, the crux of his book is the distance between the narrator and the subject...and that distance is as applicable to an older self recalling a younger self in memoir as it is to an older narrator animating his younger self in fiction. Birkerts introduces his book by exploring a few classic masters of the art: Nabokov (Speak, Memory) and Virginia Woolf's "A Sketch of the Past," he devotes most of his exploration to works by authors who published in the latter half of the twentieth century all the while teasing out the question, Why is memoir such a dominent form in our contemporary era. Along the way he articulates, time and again, the purpose of that all important distance between narrator and subject, and his rearticulation goes a long way toward making clear a concept so crucial and so ephemerally glimpsed (at least for me: I think this stuff is like that which one perceives peripherally and loses when full gaze is turned upon). Herewith some eloquent observations by Birkerts, who has thought long and hard and successfully about this gorgeous, elusive subject:

The memoirist needs "to give the reader both the unprocessed feeling of the world as [he] saw it then and a reflective vantage point that incorporates or suggests that these events made a different kind of sense over time. This is the transformation that, if well done, absolves a memoiristic reflection from the charge of self-involved navel-gazing. What makes the difference is not only the fact of reflective self-awareness, but the conversion of private into public by way of a narrative compelling the interest and engagement of the reader."

"The act of storytelling--even if the story is an account of psychological self-realization--is by its very nature an attempt at universalizing the specific; it assumes there is a shared ground between the teller and the audience. Storytelling fails when the narrative cannot coax sympathetic resonance from the listener."

Quoting V. Woolf: "One of the reasons why so many meoirs are failures: They leave out the person to whom things have happened." "They say, 'This is what happened', but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened."

"The memoirist's 'I' must be an inhabited character."

(Birkerts on Anne Dillard): "The collision of original perception and highsight realization: the revision fo the then by the now."

(Birkerts on Ondaatje): "The scope is variable and determined b the object of the author's private search. The point of the work...is to discover through memory the linkages that give resonance to what would otherwise be the chaos of life."

(Birkerts on Gornick): "It's hardly a surprise that the memoirist looking deep into the past should find herself constantly moving between experience tasted and experience digested." (!!!)

[Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

repetitive but insightful and clocked my daddy issues ig lol

[Lucy :) Inman · Rating 2 out of 5]

First impressions aren't everything, but they are something, and mine for this book are not too shiny.

It's important for you to know that I have not yet finished this book; I may or may not return to it in the future, but for now, I acknowledge my limited time and the abundance of resources available to glean insights from, so I'm moving on from this one.

I think you can learn something from everyone and everything, and this book is no different. The premise was striking and very promising - timing in storytelling, including the genre of memoir, matters immensely. It's a note I'll continue to think about. The communication style for this particular author in this particular book, on the other hand, reads to me as convoluted and pretentious. It feels a bit high and mighty for my liking; while I appreciate his desire to elevate the art of memoir writing in an age and market flooded with them, his approach feels alienating and somewhat pompous.

I was, admittedly, skeptical to read any book broaching the subject of how to write; I feared it would hinder my own ability to put pen to paper and scribble out thoughts and stories. I have a hard enough time quieting my own inner critic long enough to form a draft before her censorious view becomes slightly more welcome and somewhat more useful. The last thing I need is another squinty eyed scoundrel mercilessly looking over my shoulder. However, against my own judgement, I picked up two books on writing simultaneously, one of which I've surprised myself by loving immensely. If you're in the market for an encouraging, insightful, and grounded perspective on the art of writing, I'd highly recommend Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird."

Another thought I'll add is this: to gain insights on what makes a great memoir, read memoirs. They're certainly not all created equal (the author of this book certainly agrees), and that's the point. Learn from what you like AND what you don't. I do think everyone has a story worth telling, but that doesn't mean all memoirs tell it well or even focus on the right parts of the story.

My departing note is thus: a mentor of a dear friend of mine told my writer's group recently, "Everyone has an audience; there are people who will only be able to hear from you." In this season of my life, Mr. Birkerts, I am not one of your people.

[Carrie Honaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the most important nugget I took away was one I have read about in Vivian Gornick’s and Mary Karr’s craft books. “So much of the substance of memoir is not exactly what happened but rather, what is the expressive truth of the past, the truth of feeling that answers to the effect of events and relationships on a life.” Sometimes I struggle with the fact that I don’t remember every detail about an event I am writing, but I remember the feelings, the moments. This is what is important though, and I need to remember that. It is not about recounting an exact event like nonfiction. It is about recounting a feeling, an emotion, something that touches readers and reminds them of the universal human experience. That is what makes memoir creative nonfiction.

Read my full review at:
https://strawbabiesandchocolatebeer.c...

[Lisa Laureano · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again is beautifully written, full of quotable gems capturing key elements of great writing in several deeply-analyzed memoirs. Birkerts deftly pulls out the common features of compellingly-told life stories in a way that is at once an appreciation of great literature as well as an extremely useful how-to. There are dos and don'ts that are concrete; then there are guiding principles that are a little more ephemeral, and finally there is the alchemy of rules, principles, and art that produce a great narrative finely told. A reassuring companion for any aspiring memoirist, and a manual for closer reading for those interested in reading, rather than writing, memoirs.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been reading memoirs and books about memoir. There are some helpful perspectives in the first section of this book. Then it goes into discussing examples of different types of memoirs. I find this less interesting since I often haven't read the specific memoirs being discussed. Many of the memoirs cited, were familiar from other books on this topic.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of smart thinking in this book, helpful advice and musing on memoir. Some quotes and notes that I gave to my creative nonfiction students:

Again and again, people say to me, “If I could just tell it,” and I know exactly what they mean. But how hard it is to disabuse them of the idea that if they just started at the beginning and worked their way forward, all would be revealed. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is in fact no faster way to smother the core meaning of a life, its elusive threads and connections, than with the heavy blanket of narrated event. Even the juiciest scandals and revelations topple before the drone of, “And then … and then …”

Memoir begins not with even but with the intuition of meaning – with the mysterious fact that life can sometimes step free from the chaos of contingency and become story.

[In successful memoirs, the purpose] is to discover the nonsequential connections that allow experiences to make larger sense; they are about are about a circumstance becoming meaningful when seem from a certain remove. They all, to a greater or lesser degree, use the vantage point of the present to gain access to what might called the hidden narrative of the past.

Of Virginia Woolf, Birkerts writes:

If she hasn’t discovered an artistic shape that will completely express the tension between present and past, she is nonetheless subjecting the mystery to a constant pressure of inquiry.

[Yes: we should put this constant pressure on our words, our sentences.]

[Memoirs] present not the line of the life, but the life remembered … serving theme rather than event.

[He’s making a distinction here between memoir and autobiography; the distinction to me seems useful to our work in the essay as well. It’s not just what happened, or even what it meant when it happened, but what it means now that matters.]

The memoirist is generally not after the sequenced account of life so much as the story or stories that have given that life its internal shape. … And because we come to our insights more by way of thematic association than chronology, using hindsight to pick the lock of the then, the structure of the work seldom follows the A-B-C of logical sequence.

[The focus on structure is important. It’s an easy thing to forget about – easier to get lost in recounting what happened than in organizing it. This has something to do with making personal sense of the events you relate, but also much to do with preparing them for an audience. I think about preparing a meal: whatever happened might be your raw ingredients, so you have to get that down to get started, but you still have much work to do in terms of combining, cooking, arranging, presenting before you can serve the meal to someone else.]

About works arranged in nonlinear chunks:

The risk with [this style] is that while it looks deceptively simple – much as an abstract expressionist painting might be to a first-time viewer – it requires careful intuitive calibration of effects. Some juxtapositions work, others don’t. … the writer needs to be able to step away from her material enough to measure the possible effects, to judge the structural options.

[Visha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this nifty, square tome, dedicated to the philosophy of memory & memoir writing. Be aware: it's most helpful to have read at least several of the memoirs referred to throughout the chapters, which are conveniently organized into 'broad-idea'/'condensed space' chapters: the Lyrical Seekers (a bit dense for the beginning, but it picks up from there); 'Coming of Age' (my recommendation of where to start reading); 'Fathers & Sons', 'Mothers and Daughters'. Possibly due to the space constraints, Birkerts doesn't dilly-dally when giving instruction. This is one I'll be keeping, referring to when I need some guidelines, and marking up with my highlighter and pencil. There's a handy "Works Cited" page at the end, listing some great memoirs to read, and which are referred to by Birkerts.

Another great guide from Graywolf Press. If you haven't checked out this press yet, do yourself a favor: www.graywolfpress.org. They cover fiction, non-fiction, and poetry (lots and lots of Albert Goldbarth). I've always been pleased with anything I've picked up from them, but I will recommend John D'Agata's Halls of Fame and The Next American Essay, Per Patterson's Out Stealing Horses; Ander Monson's Neck Deep.

[loafingcactus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had thought this book would be prescriptive about the particulars of craft of using time in a memoir. For this I blame a misleading title. The book is more descriptive about the fact that memoir is defined by being about something in another time and thus being about moving from the experience of not having perspective to the writer's reality of having perspective. The provides categories of memoirs and describes how this affects their usual structure.

And it does the above very well. However, a reader might be inclined to be disturbed by the gender normatives of his grouping, particularly since he writes at length about a book (The Kiss) which explodes his gender norming without in any way addressing the problem including the book raises.

[Juan Alvarado Valdivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. If I could give it 4.5 stars, I would. If you ever want to pick up a book that critically and thoughtfully analyzes the memoir, I can't think of a better book than this one. Birkerts provides a number of incisive breakdowns of books within the classic memoir genres (such as "Coming of Age," "Mothers and Daughters," and "Trauma and Memory") to show how some strong writers went about writing their books, how they dealt with the issue of writing about memory, and the passage of time. It's an excellent, thorough meditation on the memoir genre, what differentiates it from fiction writing. Lots of noteworthy gems throughout. To boot, the books cited at the end looks like an exemplary list of memoirs to read.

[Nancy Hinchliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

4169634 Just finished reading this. I must say I was rather disappointed. I thought I would glean more useful information, as I am now in the throes of designing an approach to my own memoir. and thought maybe this would delineate a few issues for me...things to consider, to look out for.

I did not like the style of writing in this book and the language used. It seems pretentious, affected and excessive in the choice of words. It could have been easier to read and digest if the language and the ideas had been kept simpler and more straightforward. However; there was some good information. But I had to keep going back and re-reading various passages. I think parts of it will be helpful, though, in deciding how to structure my memoir and what to put on it.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suspended somewhere between a short book and an extended essay, this is a brief look at a number of reoccuring narrative and stylistic techniques in the ever-popular genre of memoir, fleshed out with examples culled from Birkert's obviously expansive personal readings. It often gets bogged down in mere synopses, but the first two chapters--the prologue where Birkerts describes his own struggle to write a memoir and the chapter on "lyrical seekers" (specifically Nabokov, Woolf and Dillard)--are densely packed and quite illuminating. Uneven, but not without merit.

"Every memoirist is, with Proust, in search of lost time."

[Michele Cacano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this. It is essentially a critique of modern memoir, with many examples (and a reading list to further explore) of writing techniques; whay works and why, whay is less effective, how to choose and enact the desired effect for readers (assuming you are a memoir writer).

I feel I have learned not only intellectually, but viscerally, through this book. I will most likely revisit it often.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, yes, yes! While I left feeling a bit frustrated that it didn't "solve" any temporal problems I am having in my own writing, I was reminded that any so-called craft book that promises to yield easy answers or duct-tape-like narrative sutures is worth its weight in crap. We have to stake out our own territory. Do our own work. But Birkert's book gives us much to consider as we do so.

[Joelle Tamraz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book works as a reference for memoir-writing. When I read it the first time at the start of my journey, its observations didn’t make an impact on me, but rereading it after several memoir drafts, I found it offered keen and useful insights about the craft. Written in an academic yet fluid style, this book is a gem in the memoirist’s chest.

[Casie Blevins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like I read five books in one. Wonderfully done synopses of five influential memoirs. Thoughtful and moving connections between novels. I enjoyed this The Art of title.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this work, Birkerts manages to masterfully and beautifully not only explore and define different methods of literary memoir, but also defend the genre as a whole. He takes the reader through many notable memoirs in an intimate exploration of the author's chosen narrative. There is space dedicated to the lyrical memoir, to the traumatic memoir, to the memoirs dedicated to enmeshed and tense mother-daughter relationships, as well as the distant and void father-son relationships.

While this book is at its core a study of the literary memoir, Birkerts does not take on this task with detachment. He dedicates space to emotional excerpts from the memoirs he references and explores the attachments and detachments and coming-of-age plights and familial tension with an empathetic and yet not indulgent tone. He draws a thin line between emotional exploration and literary study and walks it wonderfully.

"My main hope in writing this reflective survey has been to argue for the complexity and sophistication of the literary memoir and at the same time to insist that there is a necessary wisdom in the best of these works that cannot be discovered in the other genre, not in the same way."

Overall, Birkerts accomplishes this task quite eloquently, leaving no doubt in the sophistication and wisdom that can be garnered from the literary memoir.

[Andy Oram · Rating 5 out of 5]

The insights from this book helped me appreciate other people's memoirs and write my own. I was alternating between Birkerts and my own work much of the time: reading a few pages of his book, getting an inspiration, and rushing off to edit my draft.

The book is therefore valuable, but it's not quite what I expected. It's about two-thirds literary analysis and one-third advice, a big contrast with another useful book I read recently (Writing the Memoir, by Judith Barrington). To read Birkerts, you have to deal agilely with phrases such as "manipulation of the reflective voice" and "intensify our sense of subjective dimension." If you can navigate such passages, you will be rewarded with insights about retrieving memory, handling sequence, and turning your personal experience into a text other people will enjoy and learn from. Birkerts discusses outstanding examples of popular genres, such as coming-of-age and trauma stories, but emphasizes that every author finds a unique way to lay out the revelations offered by his or her life.

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book on the art of memoir, The Art of Time in Memoir makes the case that the hallmark of the memoir is the adept use of the retrospective, the shifting between what happened then, that is, at the time of the events of the narrative, and how those events are to be interpreted now. Sven Birkerts demonstrates how the retrospective works with respect to the way memoirists might structure their work. One way to tell the story is to look back on life at that lost innocence which we only seem to have access to in childhood as Nabokov's Speak, Memory does, or Annie Dillard's An American Childhood. Memoirs can also be written about coming of age, as tales of fathers and sons, tales of mothers and daughters, tales of trauma and how trauma shapes memory. Birkerts analyzes each of these different memoir forms and holds up certain works as exemplars of these forms. This book is very much worth reading, especially if you want an inroad on some great memoirs to read.

[Adrian Alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paired with specific attention to the narrative voice of a work, as outlined by Wayne C. Booth, or as it is intensively studied at the Writers Studio, Birkerts' take on the distance between the writer and the narrator as it functions in memoir is exceptionally well written. By surveying a few of the large thematic tracks in memoir he is able to bring home more than a few useful and poignant truths about writing and how memory functions in the context of memoir (and, separately, autobiography). I'm not interested in writing a memoir at the moment but the lessons given here can be applied to any type of writing, and certainly any time of living, where memory is concerned.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time understanding much of anything Birkerts said in this book. I read it for a memoir class and my beloved professor frequently sang the praises of this book, but it just never clicked for me. I found myself having to read passages over and over again and still not understanding the words I had been staring at. If I was reading for myself maybe I would have taken more time with this, but since it was for school, I often got frustrated trying to understand the book.

[Zuska · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting overview of multiple classic memoirs, grouped according to several broad themes. One does learn something about the use of time/timelines in structuring memoir, and it can be a fast read (I just got interrupted with several other books).

[Carole Duff · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to handle the “double vantage point”—the then of the past (the former self) and now (the present self, trying to find meaning of the former self’s experience). Excellent examples of how master memoirists have accomplished this feat.

[Potassium · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bleh. The worst. This guy thinks he is the best and all of his chosen examples are also the best. If he blabs about Proust one more time.... I refuse to believe that there is so little diversity in memoir writers and the stories they choose to tell.

This book made me want to break all his “rules.”

[Joanne Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

An instructive little book, although I think it is misnamed. It should be something more like "Vantage Point in Memoir." I liked Birkert's discussion of truth telling in memoir. He concludes that "memoir serves the spirit of the past, not the letter."