Week 3- Memoirs: The Story of You

Memoirs: The Story of You

The fluidity between fact and fiction in writing is something I was never concerned with until last semester when I took an Honors College literature gen ed called “Almost True Stories.” In this class, we read all nonfiction stories—most of them written by authors from The New Yorker, my professor’s former place of work.

One of these stories was a memoir, and the rest were nonfiction recounts of various events. One of these narrative nonfiction works was about the Clutter family murder that took place in Garden City, Kansas, in 1959, and another followed a woman’s interview process of the men involved in the McGinnis vs. MacDonald court case.

A recurring topic that came up in this class was the distinction between fact and fiction. We discussed this fluidity extensively, and it made me really question my definition of these terms. Previously, I understood nonfiction to mean the absolute truth and for fiction to mean fake.

But then you realize how difficult it is to turn nonfiction into a narrative account because of the fact that, in the example of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the author was not present at the time of the murder. The author was forced to guess which movements were made in order to write the story out in a way that is of interest to an audience.

I didn’t truly understand how difficult this was until we had to try writing a narrative nonfiction story for our final project. Blurring the line between fact and fiction is really easy to do when you aren’t sure of certain details, and this holds true for a memoir. People forget things, and sometimes certain details are just too boring to be written about.

This leads people to start fictionalizing certain aspects of their work, which then begs the question: if this work doesn’t contain the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, can it really and truly be considered a work of nonfiction?

According to The Huffington Post’s article, “There is...a clear-cut difference between embellishing memories for the sake of emotional honesty, and, well, just making stuff up for the heck of it. ‘Truth may have become a foggy, fuzzy nether area,’ she writes. ‘But untruth is simple: making up events with the intention to deceive...’”

I agree with this statement because, as previously mentioned, sometimes things need to be spiced up for an artistic purpose. Adding a minor detail to a story like the color of someone’s shirt that may not be factually accurate doesn’t change the overall story. But, when events are entirely made up to add depth or certain qualities to the story, then that’s when it crosses the line to a work of fiction.

This issue is present in the memoir I read for my literature class called I, Rigoberta Menchú. This is the story of a woman who survived the Guatemalan genocide and became an advocate fighting for the rights of the indigenous peoples of her country. She recounts gruesome, brutal stories of her family members being tortured, killed, and abused.

The story was written uniquely in that Rigoberta verbally spoke her story to Ann Wright, who translated the story for her. It was written disorderly and had a lot of repetition, showing the authenticity of the story—it wasn’t rearranged and organized for the sake of telling a story. Rather, this story was written for the sake of getting word out about what was happening to the indigenous tribes of Guatemala.

One inspiring quote that sums of Rigoberta’s philosophy and drive to fight is: “...What hurt me very, very much was the lives of so many compañeros, fine compañeros, who weren’t ambitious for power in the least. All they wanted was enough to live on, enough to meet their people’s needs. This reinforced my decision to fight.”

This taught the reader the importance of standing up for what you believe in. She was acting selflessly for the sake of her people. She knew what was right, and she knew this treatment was unfair. She stood up unabashedly, ready to take on any punishment that was awaiting her on the offensive line. This cathartic experience can serve to inspire the reader a lot.

The only thing is...after this memoir was published, there were various “facts” in the story that later turned out to be fictional. This decreased the credibility of the author and made many readers question the memoir’s originally perceived authenticity.

Our professor informed us about this blurred line between fact and fiction after we had finished the memoir and had already formed an opinion on this heroic activist. Discovering that she may have fudged some of the truth was confusing and forced us to reconsider our take on the story.

Some things our professor told us she lied about were the fact that she was present at the time of her brother’s death (which was written in excruciating detail) and her lack of education (in the memoir, she said she had no formal education because the system was corrupt, so she learned everything she knew from her parents and from being self-taught).

These aspects of the story made me question her authenticity, especially when her lack of education made her story even more incredible. Overall, I don’t think the main, take-home message of the story was affected by these fictionalizations, though. The main point was that Guatemala was suffering, and it was our responsibility to help them.

If this story had been published instead on a blog, I think it would have been able to reach a larger audience. This platform could make her story viral and might influence a larger change on our part. However, posting something of this intensity and seriousness would probably lower her credibility. This is the type of thing you would expect to see on the news or published in a book, not in a blog.

Crum, Maddie. “Nothing But The Truth?: On Lying And Memoir-Writing.” The Huffington Post, The Huffington Post, 28 Sept. 2015, 8:49, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/memoir-writing-facts_us_56044f0be4b08820d91c2132.