THE TRUTH ABOUT MEMOIRS

A memoir is a type of autobiographical writing. “Memoir" is a French word that means "memory." In a memoir, the author recalls meaningful experiences in his or her life. While the memoir is a subclass of the autobiography genre¹, it is actually quite different from an autobiography. An autobiography is a work of nonfiction that is a comprehensive², chronological³ account of a writer's entire life story. An autobiography usually requires research into dates, places, and events, while a memoir is shorter and focuses on parts of a writer's life recalled from memory. It presents pivotal, life-changing events that have shaped some facet of the author's identity. So while an autobiography is an objective retelling of facts, a memoir tends to be more emotional. With compelling⁴ plots and sometimes almost literary characterizations of real people, many memoirs read like novels.

An early example of a highly praised memoir is a book published in England in 1821 called Confessions of an Opium-Eater by Thomas DeQuincey. The book describes in detail DeQuincey's addiction to opium and alcohol. It was widely praised, not only for the incredible details of addiction it presented but also for the clues into the psychology of addiction. A more modern example of a bestselling memoir is by Frank McCourt. In his book Angela's Ashes, McCourt recounts his childhood in Ireland and New York City. McCourt grew up poor with a mostly absent father and a mother, Angela, who raised her children despite tremendous financial and personal obstacles.

The memoir is a genre with a wide appeal. Why are memoirs so popular? One reason is that people are inherently⁵ curious about other people. We might know the intimate details of the lives of only a handful of people, such as our family members or our close friends. But when we read a memoir, we can enter into the world of the writer and find out what it is like to experience something we may never experience: an incredible adventure, a great loss, or a seemingly insurmountable⁶ problem.

Memoirs can be appealing because true stories are often more powerful than fictional stories. For example, many readers of Elie Wiesel's memoirs about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp are struck by the fact that this is a real person who has lived through incredible adversity to tell his story. Brooke Shields, an American actress, wrote a memoir entitled Down Came the Rain in which she tells of her debilitating⁷ struggle with postpartum⁸ depression. Women who have had a similar experience were able to see that other people struggle with the same things.

But are memoirs entirely accurate? Even the authors must freely admit that memories fade over time. Events can be forgotten, left out, or told in a way that might technically contradict certain facts. As readers, we should be able to trust the writer to be truthful most of the time, at least in intention. But several memoirs have turned out to be partially or completely untrue in ways that disappointed many readers. One extreme example was Love and Consequences by Margaret B. Jones. In it, Jones, who is part Native American, chronicles⁹ her tough experiences growing up in and around gangs in South Central Los Angeles. The problem: Margaret Jones does not exist. She, like her so-called memoir, was pure fiction, invented by Margaret Seltzer, who grew up in a rich suburb and attended private schools.

In spite of some controversy surrounding the truthfulness of memoirs, they remain a compelling literary form that will undoubtedly continue to touch readers in a fundamental way. Publishing companies are starting to do background checks on authors to verify the events presented in memoirs, but they are not about to give up on a genre that has contributed so much to their profits and to the pleasure of readers.

• psychology of addiction
• like a novel
• recalled from memory
• enter the world
• background checks
• memories fade

• characterization
• contradict
• facet
• freely
• incredible
• technically

An Invented Life

The Star Wars actor Carrie Fisher, author of a popular memoir about her struggles with addiction and mental health issues, once remarked, "No one wants to read about beautiful, happy people." Fisher was pointing out an underlying truth of the memoir: stories about suffering sell. They sell so well, in fact, that some people can't resist faking them.

Such was the case with Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years by Misha Defonseca. First published in 1997, Misha chronicles the astonishing experiences of the author as a little Jewish girl from Belgium who lost her parents when the Nazis deported them. At just eight years old, she ran away from a foster home to search for them, traveling thousands of miles across Europe alone. Along the way, she sneaked into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto, lived with a pack of wolves in a forest, and even killed a Nazi soldier in self-defense. It's a gripping, inspiring story of bravery and perseverance— and fraud.

Misha Defonseca was an invention of Monique de Wael (the author's real name). De Wael's parents were, in fact, deported by the Nazis, but it was for their membership in the French Resistance, and they were Catholic, not Jewish. A simple review of records revealed de Wael lived with relatives, never left her hometown during the war, and was attending school at the time the events in her "memoir" supposedly took place.

De Wael later explained that she had always "felt Jewish" and that while the events were imagined, they were "real to (her)." But in a 2014 ruling, a Massachusetts court made it clear that wasn't real enough. De Wael was ordered to give up the $22 million she had earned from the book.