Memory and Truth–Three Different Memoirs from One Family

You may have read about how Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs created dissension in his own family and in the family of Dr. Finch, the psychiatrist with whom Burroughs went to live at the age of 13. There have been law suits charging defamation of character and invasion of privacy.

This book, which was a bestseller in 2002, has been joined by memoirs by his brother John Elder Robison and most recently, from his estranged mother, Margaret Robison.

Reporter Lynn Neary on Morning Edition of NPR today interviewed all three members of the family this morning. Listen or read the transcript here.

Neary’s conclusion is one we need to hear and discuss:

“Memoirs have been much maligned of late because they are all about memory. But while they may be notoriously unreliable vehicles for facts, they are endlessly fascinating sources of speculation about what really is the truth.”

I confess that, although I have been reading about Burroughs, his law suits, and his family, I have not read any one of the books mentioned in the NPR story. Have you? Please enlighten us with your thoughts.

Listen to Six-Word Memoirs on NPR

Want to hear people from all over the country call in their life stories in six words? It’s a pretty good way to spend 17 minutes! Just click here.

Ben Yagoda on NPR: Great Overview of Memoir History

Two days ago I posted an NPR story summary with my own slant on it. It got picked up on www.expectingrain.com and reached hundreds of viewers, instantly becoming my most viewed post. That was exciting. Thanks, Expectingrain.com!

Come to think of it, NPR stories on the arts almost always fascinate me, and I can tell I am not alone. I am one of those people who sit in the garage in the cold after turning off the engine but not the radio–I want to hear the story to the very end.

So, of course, I loved it when Ben Yagoda’s new book got 29 minutes of NPR Talk of the Nation airtime on Dec. 24. Even though I was not listening at the time, I found the story in my Google Reader, and now share it with you.  I am reading the book on my Kindle and will review it in a few days or weeks. Have a more scholarly review to write now that is taking some time. In the meantime, enjoy this segment on your own by clicking on this link!

This American Life: What Has Kept You Together?

If the 21st century is the memoir century, then the job of this blog is to catalogue, comment, and critique.  In the next weeks, you can expect to see more posts about the uses of memoir in the media world, whether that world is “mainstream,” “social media,” book publishing, online publishing, radio, television, film or any other phenomenon.  Please bring even more examples into the fledgling memoir community gathering here.

We have already looked at the huge role memoir played in the last political campaign.  We have chronicled the six-word memoir, the 25 Things About Me phenomenon, Facebook, and reviewed many memoirs here.  Now it is time to begin thinking about radio, especially NPR.  Think about your favorite shows:  Story Corps, “This I Believe” and “This American Life.”

“This American Life” has been the top podcast on iTunes for years.  I love listening, often laughing, always engaged in someone else’s world and more reflective about my own.

Here’s just one show you can listen to now by clicking the hot link in this sentence.  If you don’t have time to listen to the whole show, let me pull out one sentence for you to contemplate here.

We always ask people “how did you meet?”  We never ask “what has kept you together?”  Consider this post the exception to that rule.

What has kept you and a loved one together–whether that togetherness has been one year or fifty years?