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.

A Million Little Pieces of Memoir Genre Trust

Like most of my readers, I am an admirer of Greg Mortenson and think what he has done  in Afghanistan and Pakistan–building schools (helping girls, especially) and building relationships of trust–is the best way for Americans to interact with the people of Central Asia. A vast improvement over drone strikes and endless war!

Yet the 60 Minutes program last Sunday and many articles in the national media since then have accused Mortenson of two major transgressions–mismanagement of funds and dishonesty in print.

I’ll leave the issues of organizational mismanagement for other bloggers to dissect. The issues relevant to our conversation concern ethics in memoir writing. Alison Flood in the April 22 edition of The Guardian asks whether the whole genre is damaged by all the memoir scandals (a category I have been following here). Her answer: not necessarily (the James Frey controversy actually stimulated book sales, at least initially). However, she surmised that the next heroic tale memoir writer who tries to follow in Mortenson’s footsteps will have a steeper mountain of trust to summit. As more and more memoirists are discredited, the book-buying public may become very suspicious about miraculous epiphanies, heroic escapes, emotionally-charged causes and miserable childhoods.

Nick Carbone wrote in Time magazine, “Looks like Mortenson’s writing has the potential to be shattered into a million little pieces.”

For me, the most damaging charge against Mortenson is not the question of when he entered Korphe (immediately after his K2 climb or a year later) but the fact that he told a story of being captured by Taliban and showed pictures of people who adamantly deny being Taliban. Then there is also the issue of how a memoir subject interacts with his ghost writer–how much truth can be delegated to a story teller with a keen feel for narrative arc–or even narrative edge?

You can read Alex Heard’s excellent exclusive interview with Mortenson here. At one point Heard summarizes what Mortenson says about writing the memoir: So you’re saying you were new to the process, busy, and you were naive about how nonfiction is written. And they were sometimes saying, “Let’s tell it this way, it’s better”?
Yes, definitely. I was also overseas a lot, in Afghanistan—we had been really launching there since 2000. When I was there, David would read the manuscript to me over the phone, and so forth.

A friend who loved Three Cups of Tea and is on Mortenson’s mailing list, received this message from him recently. I publish it in full, giving him the chance to explain his point of view.

Sunday, April 17, 2011
Asalaam-o-Alaikum (Peace Be With You). Greetings from Montana and on behalf of the dear children and communities we serve in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Thank you (Tashakur and Shukuria) for the overwhelming response to the news in recent days, for the outpouring of support, prayers and the confidence that you, our supporters, have showered upon Central Asia Institute, Pennies For Peace and my family. In the midst of these difficult and challenging days, I keep thinking about the Persian proverb, “When it is darkest you can see the stars.” You are all shining lights and we are grateful for your compassion.

Although we would like the world to be linear, orderly and peaceful, the reality is that our world is a dynamic, fluid place, often filled with chaos and confusion. In that space, I thrive and get the courage to help bring change and empower people. I also feel great pride that you have chosen to support those who live in the ‘Last Best Places’, where other organizations or governments offer few or no services.

I welcome and am used to facing criticism, which sometimes even turns into hostility and threats, over the important work we do in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As an introvert and shy person, it is also not easy to have to enter an arena of a media circus at the drop of a heartbeat. But, as those of you who know me and have supported my work over the years will recognize, the story being framed by “60 Minutes” to air in a few hours today – as far as we can tell — paints a distorted picture using inaccurate information, innuendo and a microscopic focus on one year’s (2009) IRS 990 financial, and a few points in the book “Three Cups of Tea” that occurred almost 18 years ago. Apparently, the CBS program is to be followed in the near future by a similar negative piece by Jon Krakauer in an unknown magazine, which I only recently heard about last week.

The Board of Directors and I made the very difficult decision to not engage with “60 Minutes” on camera, after they attempted an eleventh hour aggressive approach to reach me, including an ambush in front of children at a book signing at a community service leadership convention in Atlanta. It was clear that the program’s disrespectful approach would not result in a fair, balanced or objective representation of our work, my books or our vital mission. We also turned down a last minute request for an interview with Jon Krakauer.

The “60 Minutes” program may appear to ask simple questions, but the answers are often complex, not easily encapsulated in 10-second sound bites. Working in isolated areas, in communities that are not on any map, and often in areas of turmoil, religious extremism or natural disasters where education is still relatively rare and ancient codes of conduct and social hierarchies still dominate – all these things demand constant adjustment, accommodation and patience.

We have always maintained that our work is about investing in relationships, respecting elders, and listening over a time span that stretches generations, not in one that lasts just a few minutes on prime time television.

o although I did not do an on-camera interview, CAI’s Board of Directors and I have duly responded to questions provided us late last week by “60 Minutes” with both statements and answers. And as always we pride ourselves to be transparent with our financials and IRS 990 forms.

All of this can be found on our website, www.ikat.org, and more information will be added in coming days.

Because of a medical condition mentioned below, I have spoken with our hometown newspaper, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, about this attack, and the newsroom is closely following developments on this story:

Mortenson under fire from ’60 Minutes’ - Bozeman philanthropist denies allegations (Friday, April 15, 2011)

CAI responds to Mortenson allegations (Sunday, April 17, 2011)

I also recently returned from Afghanistan, and was amazed to see how incredibly well everything is going there, including having five female managers (out of 15 total) and a plan to establish and build over 60 new schools this year. Our Board Chairman, Dr. Abdul Jabbar, also recently returned from an extensive trip to Pakistan. We will combine the news and send you an email and / or printed information within the next month to share the good news.

I would like to take this opportunity to disclose that for the last 18 months, I have been struggling with hypoxia (low oxygen saturation), which made it very difficult to get through a grueling schedule. My physician told me I had to stop and rest, however the urgency of what we do spurred me on. Last Friday (4/15/11), I came home and was diagnosed with a hole in my heart that was shunting blood, causing my low saturations.

Tomorrow, I will have further tests and then a heart surgical procedure this week to fix the hole. After a few weeks my doctor says I will be as good as new. For the first time in eighteen months, I will have tremendous energy, strength and lots of oxygen. At that time, I will come out fighting for what is right and just, and be able to talk to the media. Regardless of what happens, our work must go on. It’s most important to know that education is the only thing one can never take away from an individual; it remains forever.

It is a true blessing to be at home now, with family and friends. In the meantime, I send you my heartfelt thanks for your continued support, and if you have any questions or concerns at all, I urge you to contact our office. Our small committed staff will be responding as quickly as they can to answer your calls, e-mails and requests for more information.

Please feel free to pass on this email to your families, friends and colleagues, and if you feel compelled, please write letters to the editor, or your on-line communities, about your thoughts.

You are in my thoughts and prayers.
Greg Mortenson
Bozeman, MT

Now that you’ve had a chance to hear from both Greg Mortenson and his critics, both loving and skeptical, what do you think? How damaged is the genre itself?

Say It Ain’t So, Greg! Three Cups of Tea Comes Under Memoir Scrutiny

I loved the book Three Cups of Tea. You likely did also if you read it. This morning The New York Times carried an investigative story that questions the veracity of the central narrative about stumbling upon Korphe, a village in Afghanistan, after failing to reach the peak of the mountain K2.

Here’s the story:

‘Three Cups of Tea’ Author Defends Book

By JULIE BOSMAN and STEPHANIE STROM

“While the publishing industry waited to see whether it faced the embarrassment of yet another partly fabricated memoir, Greg Mortenson, the co-author of the best-selling “Three Cups of Tea,” a book popular with the Pentagon for its inspirational lessons on Afghanistan and Pakistan, forcefully countered a CBS News report on Sunday that questioned the facts of his book and the management of his charitable organization.

The report could puncture a hole in the uplifting narrative of “Three Cups of Tea,” which has fed a charity run by Mr. Mortenson, the Central Asia Institute. The institute has built schools, mostly for girls, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The report has also revived a chronic concern in the publishing industry over the accuracy of nonfiction memoirs, which are typically only lightly fact-checked by publishers, if at all.

Viking, the imprint of Penguin Group USA that published “Three Cups of Tea,” declined to comment on the book or answer questions about how it was vetted.

The CBS News report questioned, in particular, a central anecdote of the book that was as dramatic as it was inspirational: in 1993, Mr. Mortenson was retreating after failing to reach the summit of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, when, lost and dehydrated, he stumbled across the small village of Korphe in northeast Pakistan. After the villagers there nursed him back to health, he vowed to return and build a school.”

Read the whole story here.

I agree with author William Zinsser, as I have stated elsewhere on this blog, that factual truthtelling is important in memoir. But I still admire Mortenson’s book and his mission. This kind of compression of events seems less offensive than James Frey’s over-dramatization of his addictions, perhaps because it serves nobler ends. However, the 60 Minutes charges of misusing funds for personal gain hurt the most. Do you buy Mortenson’s explanation?

Telling the Truth About One’s Life: Memoir Controversies

What would a memoir blog be without a category for memoir controversy? Can you trust the label of memoir when it appears on a book?  Today’s writers, editors, and their lawyer’s are continuing to ask Pontius Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”

Most readers, myself included, expect that the basic facts reported in memoir correlate to observable reality.  Otherwise, we have a novel by another name.

With the help of blogger Gutsy Writer I discovered this Writing Your Life into Story website, one place that tells one of last year’s publishing scandals–the story of Margaret Jones, AKA Selzer, who claimed to be part white, part native American and pulled into the gangs of South LA.  Problem with the story?  Margaret grew up in Sherman Oaks and went to a private school.  Like James Frey, Selzer fictionalized much or most of the story but called it memoir. In an interesting twist, she was “outed” by her sister before the book hit the stores.

I plan to read Carol Bly’s The Passionate Accurate Story, recommended by Barbara Abercrombie, of the Writing Your Life Into Story blog cited above.

I will also catalogue controversies as they pop up on the scene.  By now, editors and publishers must be careful to ask for documentation for memoir.

But the question remains, what does it say about our culture, and about the publishing industry that writers make up stories worse than their own and then claim them to be true?  It used to be that people lied to inflate their resumes, and in business they are still doing so.  When novels ruled the publishing world, we did not have this problem.  Memoirs (note the s) were still written by ex-presidents and CEOs, and very few people without huge name recognition expected to publish the stories of their lives.

Is the issue as simple as the rush to a trend (everyone trying to outdo Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes for misery?). Or is something even deeper at work in our collective psyches?

What do you think?

My Mother’s Pulpit: Published Memoir, Contest Winner, Ethical Dilemma

Ask memoir writers what their greatest challenge is and many will say, “how and when do I share my writing with the relatives and friends who are part of my story?”  Up to now, when I finished a personal essay, I sent it off to my family to make sure there were no gross inaccuracies and because I thought they would enjoy seeing what I wrote.  They did, and I appreciated their corrections and suggestions.

But this week I am going home to see most of my siblings and my mother.  I will be carrying a story that won first place in the Kalamazoo Gazette Literary Award competition and was published in a special literary edition on March 29, 2009.  It’s called “My Mother’s Pulpit,” and you can read it here.  I chose not to tell my mother about this story or to send a copy to her.  I want to deliver it to her in print and read it to her in person.  I think, hope, pray she will love it and see it for what it is–a tribute to her indomitable spirit.

But since the story reveals that she embarrassed me, like most mothers do to most daughters at some point, I am a little nervous about her reaction.

Some memoir writers have written about this dilemma.  Annie Dillard shares her work with family members in advance of publication.  Jeanette Walls, in The Glass Castle, amazingly, has the full support of her mother in telling the story of how she became Park Avenue daughter who has a baglady mother.

Other writers, such as Augusten Burroughs in Running with Scissors, however, have been sued by family members or friends or have become estranged from them because their versions of the truth clash, or they simply don’t want the family dirty laundry put on the line.

Truman Capote alienated nearly every friend he had left after the publication of Answered Prayers. No amount of fame or literary achievement would be worth that to me.

Another way, oddly enough, that friends and relatives can take offense results from not mentioning them. Memoir writers probably ought to place gargoyles on their houses to protect themselves from all potential hazards of the calling.

I take comfort in the case of the residents of Willa Cather’s hometown of Red Cloud, Nebraska, which at first did not like the way she portrayed them in her stories and novels.  Now Red Cloud proudly displays itself as the place that fostered Cather’s imagination, and the economy of the whole town is heavily dependent on the devoted pilgrims who come to visit the places she described in book after book.

I am hoping that Mother, who gave all her children a love of stories, will understand both my motive and my structure and characterization in the recently published story. I have counted on her unconditional love all my life, and I know I can count on it one more time.  She plays the same role in my memories of childhood that she played in all the war-time Manheim Township High School dramas–leading lady.

Do any of you have advice for me?  Personal experiences to offer?

Memoir Controversy: Does Gender Matter?

My friend Sonia, who is doing a fantastic job of blogging about her experience as an expatriate in many different countries (check out http://gutsywriter.blogspot.com) and who has written a memoir about taking her family, including three teenage sons, to Belize for a year, sent me the following link.  Apparently, the life stories of women and those of men still have some hidden master narratives which allow for a wider range of sins for men than for women.

Here is one writer’s analysis of sexism in memoir review and publishing: http://jenniferweiner.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-was-watching-30-rock-where.html

Does she convince you?  I did not read any of the memoirs reviewed here, so I can’t weigh in, but I find the thesis believable.

The Latest Memoir Controversy: Angel at the Fence

“Read all about it!,” the newsboys could be saying, if there were newsboys today. “Another memoir bites the dust!”  “Oprah decides to vet all future memoirists with truth serum!”  Of course, there is brand new president, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an economic meltdown to report on, too, but, hey, memoir dishes up conflict without loss of limb or job, so it makes for good reading and great dinner table conversation.

The latest scandal surrounds the canceled publication of a memoir that is more fiction than fact.  The author of the book, Herman Rosenblat, apparently wanted to inspire people with a love story about the Holocaust.  Instead, he has angered many who say that this kind of work exploits the Holocaust and encourages the deniers.  I won’t repeat details myself but here are two Huffington Post posts written by Hillel Italie. Be sure to read the comments.

Here is the second one also:

The issues raised by the handful of scandals, ever since the infamous James Frey case, boil down to this:  why don’t people just call their stories novels?  What advantage do they hope to gain by portraying the work as memoir?  And just how strict are the rules around “the truth”?  Obviously, people don’t remember dialogue word for word, yet many memoirs include long stretches of dialogue.

What role is the publishing industry playing in the development of these scandals?  Does the need to have a platform or “backstory” now mean more than good writing to editors and publishers?  People blame Oprah and agents and editors for being duped.  But why do writers create melodramatic stories, perfectly acceptable in fiction, yet try to pass them off as historical truth?  Has postmodernism cheapened the idea of truth and enlarged the idea of the self so much that writers cannot tell the difference?

My husband Stuart has an uncle who one time asked him question, “Is that truth or is it poetry?”  We adopted this question and often ask it in jest.  But it actually seems to be a relevant question today.

How much poetic license can a writer take and still call the work a memoir?  What do you think?