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Two fake memoirs were outed over the weekend, one by a white woman who claimed to have been an American Indian drug dealer, and one by a gentile woman who claimed to have been a Jewish girl whose parents died in the Holocaust and who fled the Nazis and fetched up with one of the last surviving European wolf packs. Both also lied about their names, and provided vomitously self-serving statements about how they did it because they wanted to “give voices to the voiceless” (I think she meant “steal voices from the voiceless”) and “I always felt like I was Jewish” (then convert!) I am not going to get into how completely despicable, not to mention fraudulent, it is to lay claim to the real sufferings of people who were victims of attempted genocide and continue to suffer today. That needs no elaboration.
What caught my attention first was that the fake Holocaust memoir had been optioned by producers I used to work with, who thought it would make a great movie. I never read it, as, like many Jews, I had read and viewed a great deal of material on the Holocaust, and was at that time completely burned out on Holocaust stories. I realize how completely ridiculous and obviously false the wolf story seems in retrospect. But at the time, the reason it never occurred to us that it was fake was that we'd all heard unbelievable-sounding Holocaust stories that were completely factual. For a Jewish child to have survived the Holocaust required such a crazy collection of freakish good luck, unlikely coincidences, flukes of nature, last-minute saves, and people acting with astonishing courage and kindness—or astonishing cruelty and sadism that almost miraculously worked out in the survivor’s favor— that all of their stories were jaw-droppingly unlikely. Misha's story just didn't seem implausible in that context.
That brings me to the reason why I wrote a memoir, All the Fishes Come Home To Roost: an American Misfit in India, rather than an autobiographical novel. (sartorias asked about this in her very flattering post, thank you Sherwood, which discusses my book and my party trick of being able to recite back conversations word-for-word.) I actually did write some autobiographical plays. They all had the same problems, one of which was that they seemed implausible. The true story of my childhood was so weird, and featured so many bizarre characters acting in unlikely ways, not to mention a deus ex machina conclusion, that it didn’t work very well as fiction. This is not a criticism of fiction, any more than it would be to say that a poem doesn’t make a very good screenplay.
But even as memoir, my story seemed hard to believe. So I decided to tackle this problem head-on. In the first chapter (which you can read online here), my parents and I nearly get killed when we hire a man who doesn’t know how to drive and can’t see over the steering wheel to drive us up a mountain. I chose this as a starting point because it’s a funny story with dark undertones and so gives you a sample of the tone of the whole book, and shows the main characters all acting in characteristic ways.
But when I asked my parents about how they remembered that moment, I realized that there was another good reason to put that story first. I recalled that the reason the driver couldn’t see over the steering wheel was that it was a full-size Jeep and he was a dwarf. My mother, however, said that he was just a short guy in a big vehicle. My father insisted that the problem was that he was a twelve-year-old boy. I wrote all their explanations into the story, and let the readers decide for themselves. By doing that, I made the point that my memory might not be 100% correct, but I had corroboration for the main points, and I would be up-front about anything I wasn’t sure about.
The larger question is “Why write a memoir at all?” But one could as easily ask, “Why fictionalize the truth at all?”
We tell stories because there are stories we want to tell. Autobiographical fiction is written because people want to improve the story, don’t trust their memories, prefer that form, think that form is in style, they want to spare other people’s feelings, they think essential parts of the true story are private, and many other reasons besides. Memoirs are written because people want to blow the whistle, are tired of keeping secrets, prefer that form, think that form is in style, have a story that makes more sense that way, and many other reasons besides.
Fiction which is not emotionally honest is artistically bankrupt. Memoir which is not factually honest is morally bankrupt. It is a writer’s moral and artistic obligation to tell the truth in the manner that is appropriate to the story they wish to tell.
What caught my attention first was that the fake Holocaust memoir had been optioned by producers I used to work with, who thought it would make a great movie. I never read it, as, like many Jews, I had read and viewed a great deal of material on the Holocaust, and was at that time completely burned out on Holocaust stories. I realize how completely ridiculous and obviously false the wolf story seems in retrospect. But at the time, the reason it never occurred to us that it was fake was that we'd all heard unbelievable-sounding Holocaust stories that were completely factual. For a Jewish child to have survived the Holocaust required such a crazy collection of freakish good luck, unlikely coincidences, flukes of nature, last-minute saves, and people acting with astonishing courage and kindness—or astonishing cruelty and sadism that almost miraculously worked out in the survivor’s favor— that all of their stories were jaw-droppingly unlikely. Misha's story just didn't seem implausible in that context.
That brings me to the reason why I wrote a memoir, All the Fishes Come Home To Roost: an American Misfit in India, rather than an autobiographical novel. (sartorias asked about this in her very flattering post, thank you Sherwood, which discusses my book and my party trick of being able to recite back conversations word-for-word.) I actually did write some autobiographical plays. They all had the same problems, one of which was that they seemed implausible. The true story of my childhood was so weird, and featured so many bizarre characters acting in unlikely ways, not to mention a deus ex machina conclusion, that it didn’t work very well as fiction. This is not a criticism of fiction, any more than it would be to say that a poem doesn’t make a very good screenplay.
But even as memoir, my story seemed hard to believe. So I decided to tackle this problem head-on. In the first chapter (which you can read online here), my parents and I nearly get killed when we hire a man who doesn’t know how to drive and can’t see over the steering wheel to drive us up a mountain. I chose this as a starting point because it’s a funny story with dark undertones and so gives you a sample of the tone of the whole book, and shows the main characters all acting in characteristic ways.
But when I asked my parents about how they remembered that moment, I realized that there was another good reason to put that story first. I recalled that the reason the driver couldn’t see over the steering wheel was that it was a full-size Jeep and he was a dwarf. My mother, however, said that he was just a short guy in a big vehicle. My father insisted that the problem was that he was a twelve-year-old boy. I wrote all their explanations into the story, and let the readers decide for themselves. By doing that, I made the point that my memory might not be 100% correct, but I had corroboration for the main points, and I would be up-front about anything I wasn’t sure about.
The larger question is “Why write a memoir at all?” But one could as easily ask, “Why fictionalize the truth at all?”
We tell stories because there are stories we want to tell. Autobiographical fiction is written because people want to improve the story, don’t trust their memories, prefer that form, think that form is in style, they want to spare other people’s feelings, they think essential parts of the true story are private, and many other reasons besides. Memoirs are written because people want to blow the whistle, are tired of keeping secrets, prefer that form, think that form is in style, have a story that makes more sense that way, and many other reasons besides.
Fiction which is not emotionally honest is artistically bankrupt. Memoir which is not factually honest is morally bankrupt. It is a writer’s moral and artistic obligation to tell the truth in the manner that is appropriate to the story they wish to tell.
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I believe that it (or some of it) is fiction, because you say so: but it doesn't feel like it. FWIW.
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Maybe what it needs is some visible external identifier (the way some books say "a novel" on the front). The back cover blurb *suggests* it's fiction, but doesn't outright say so.
It does get shelved with fiction in bookstores and libraries, thanks to its catalogue numbers, but in these days of on-line ordering I guess that makes less difference.
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...?!?!
(That's neat, about the way you started your book. Very smart.)
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"Fiction which is not emotionally honest is artistically bankrupt. Memoir which is not factually honest is morally bankrupt. It is a writer’s moral and artistic obligation to tell the truth in the manner that is appropriate to the story they wish to tell."
I like that a lot. That is, the whole essay was good, but that bit is resonating with me most strongly.
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Hell, perhaps I should just replace my entire rant with that single paragraph -- it's a great deal more succinct than I managed!
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I was raised by a pack of wild drag queens
Did I ever tell you about the white woman who "claimed" to be a black woman because she wrote a play with a black lead character? I forget her name, but she was speaking to the Northwest Playwrights Association meeting one afternoon. She told the story of how she couldn't get this play produced because people knew she was white, and the character was black... so she made up a "black" name and sent it out to theatres. Apparently one theatre agreed to produce it, and she had the sitcomish scenario in front of her. I can't recall how she handled it, but she basically owned up and the company agreed to produce it anyway since they had agreed to when they thought she was black.
Okay, we as an audience could deal with that. But then, for the rest of the little discussion she kept referring to herself "as a black playwright," as in, "As a black playwright, I think that..."
We were all quite astonished by this, but for the most part, amused. It was too surreal to be believed.
Okay, I've got to go back to staring at the clapping people. Happy, clapping people. Happy, clapping people.
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There are aspects of that last phrase that might be construed as fictionalization by the sufficiently picky.
Sometimes it is necessary to simplify a story in order to make anything literarily worthwhile out of it. Sometimes that simplification involves slight munging of the facts.
Sometimes, also, a story may be too dry through confirmed memory alone, and color is added.
Obviously these can go so far as to cross the line, but does it always do so?
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(Generally speaking, though, I consider simplification that does not materially affect the general thrust of the story to be acceptable for certain types of nonfiction, but deliberate embroidery, ie color, to be in the realm of fiction.)
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I once read a con report in the form of a reported dialogue. I'd been there; I could testify that just about every line was actually spoken at the time. Yet it gave a different impression than the actual events, because it was all the good stuff crammed into one conversation, whereas the reality took place rather more desultorily over the course of a whole weekend.
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If I consciously make something up that I don't recall happening because it makes a better story than what I do remember happening, I consider it unacceptable embroidery.
Obviously, I do not consider "to the best of my recollection" to be the same as objective truth. I do, however, consider it different from deliberate fictionalization.
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I'm teaching a class in the writing of the expository essay, and our very first class discussion was on the difference between fact and opinion. It was a real eye-openers to see the criteria that students used for deciding whether a given statement was fact or opinion, including how certain the speaker/writer was of what they were saying.
I tried to get my students to think their way through some of these issues, but I don't know if it took. It's going to be interesting when we get to the class discussion that deals with evaluating sources. I have a feeling that it's going to be a really rough one.
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Also friending your journal.