Week Five: But really.. is the Truth that Interesting?

Fluidity greatly affects the craft of writing a memoir.From the article “Nothing But the Truth”, author of a popular memoir, Mary Karr, states: 

there’s a line to be drawn somewhere. There is, she says, a clear-cut difference between embellishing memories for the sake of emotional honesty, and, well, just making stuff up for the heck of it.

I am extremely descriptive when I write, therefore it is difficult for me to admit that I sometimes stretch the truth with illustrative details. Although, I believe that there is an art behind embellishing a story, and that fluidity is present when an author uses description and embellishment. Memoirs are truthful stories and based on the author’s personal knowledge on the events that took place. I believe that authors of memoirs have the ability to convey their feelings to their readers through the structure of their book, and details they use within their sentences. Another instance from “Nothing But the Truth” exemplifies how an author structured her memoir with fluidity to express her message to her readers: 

Another writer acknowledging the fluidity of fact and fiction is Lidia Yuknavitch, who recently released a novel in which several of the characters closely resemble her own close relations. She’s written a memoir, too — The Chronology of Water— which, conversely, is a true story about her sexuality and experiences as a competitive swimmer, with an arc that moves not forward, but back and forth, sometimes in circles, and, ultimately, outward, in a ripple of self-realization. 

Yuknavitch technically stretches the truth when her characters contain resemblance to people she knew. Yet, in order to fluidly convey the character’s personalities to the reader, she changed names of people, and embellished details. For what it’s worth, I do not mind a little embellishment in stories I read. The fluidity of details keeps me hooked to the story and provides a necessary flow to reading memoirs. 

            My favorite memoir of all time is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Her memoir follows her, and her family’s life from the time she was a young girl up until she is writing her first book. Her family moved around a lot due to her father’s job, and her lifestyle was extremely poor. Something I still remember vividly from the novel is one of the opening chapters. Jeannette was incredibly hungry and was at an age where she barely knew how to cook for herself. Out of desperation, she tried to cook hot dogs on the stove. She was standing on a kitchen chair to reach the stove, ended up falling, and burnt herself terribly bad off the stove. The details Walls uses throughout the novel brought me (almost) inconceivable emotions of sadness. My family did not have much money when I was growing up, and my father was consistently being laid off from construction jobs. I could relate to many of her emotions throughout the novel, and even though some of the details made the memoir tough to read through, the ending made it all worth it. Jeannette becomes a popular writer and writes her first novel—she lives out my dream. Her memoir gave me inspiration of my own, and I will never forget this book. Some of her details seem embellished throughout the novel, but after reading what she had to go through as a young girl it does not make me question the validity of her details or writing. 

Here is the link to her memoir: https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Castle-Memoir-Jeannette-Walls-ebook/dp/B000OVLKMM

The memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls could easily be transmitted into a blog. I believe each chapter of Wall’s memoir could be shortened or summarized into individual blog posts. Many readers would be intrigued by her voyeurism, and I believe the blog would be extremely popular. The blog would be able to tell Wall’s story in a way where it could be easily shared with others going through her same struggles.