I haven't read the book by James Frey that has everyone in an uproar, but I did watch the Oprah show last week where she confronted him on his lies and kind of told the publisher she was stupid for endorsing the book as a memoir. Instead, she said they should have done research on his stories and realized that the author had made up several parts of the story.
More interesting was that Oprah and the publisher discussed the concept of a memoir. It was interesting in that I came away with the understanding that pretty much anyone can write their "memoir," which is how they remember events, and possibly have them published as non fiction. I'm thinking that memoirs must have a lot of "embellishments" because all of our memories tend to bend and fold over the years. We all know that teaching tactic of staging a crime, then having different people describe what happened. Inevitably, the "witnesses" will recount the facts of the crime differently. The lesson learned? That people interpret situations, dialog, and visuals differently. Add time to that and you have an even more variable recount. Anyway, I found the topic interesting.
Then, I thought about how my memoir would read. Hmmmmm...Would it be a good read? Haven't we all thought about writing our "memoirs?" I wonder if everyone thinks their life story would make a good book. What makes the memoir worthy? Is it the story's content or the fashion in which it is written? It seems "common people" memoirs have become more common these days. While in Barns & Noble I notice the memoirs of people I've never heard of and I wonder why it is interesting to read accounts of random people's lives. I understand the famous people's lives being interesting, but some farmer's daughter from Indiana? But, in the age of reality TV, it only makes sense that the new literary star should be the memoir.
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