Everyone’s got one — a life story, that is
The Wall Street Journal site has an article on the increasing popularity of the memoir genre — this in spite of, or perhaps partially because of, the recent James Frey controversy. Staffer Robert J. Hughes looks at the variety of memoirs currently on the market, from celebrity tell-alls to political memoirs to in-depth treatments of life-changing events by the famous and the unknown. The article is also useful as a primer on the differences between autobiography and memoir. “Autobiographies typically cover a person’s entire life,” Hughes writes, “while memoirs usually are confined to a specific period or relationship in that person’s life.” This interpretive focus lends itself to a more stylized treatment of biographical material, though it is the very “literary” nature of the memoir that leaves it open to the kind of scam Frey pulled on his gullible readers. (Thanks to Bookninja.com for the post.)
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Read the Wall Street Journal article
