According to popular ideals, memoir writing is to contain the truth—the full, complete truth as told by a first person narrator—and must be written as accurately as possible. However, the recent literary period of Postmodernism has revealed controversy within this mainstream ideal. Both Postmodernism and the media contribute to the differences in opinion on how accurate a memoir should be before publication.
The Characteristics of Postmodernism
Some main features of Postmodernism include but are not limited to: unreliable narrator, nonlinear plot progression, fragmentation, shift away from rigid writing structure, heavy use of paradox, and focus on characterization rather than plot. For more information, read What is Contemporary Literature?.
The above characteristics can be seen in currently published memoirs. The memoirs that are published during this literary period of Postmodernism tend to exhibit traits of postmodernism to some extent, especially an unreliable first person narrator. Many memoirs published today are not completely accurate—meaning, they do not contain the objective truth—which defies the idea that memoirs are accurate, objective testimonies of a period in a person’s life.
An Example of Memoir Controversy in Media
Most people are acquainted with The Oprah Winfrey Show and know that Ms. Oprah Winfrey has organized her own book club. The memoir A Million Little Pieces by James Frey has been lauded by literary critics. The memoir was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was widely read by Winfrey’s readers. Yet many readers of the memoir and viewers of Winfrey’s show felt betrayed because the memoir fell short of being entirely truthful.
According to The Smoking Gun, James Frey had fictionalized many aspects of his memoir which has caused a backlash ("The Smoking Gun" 1-6).
The Breakdown of Literary Genres
The current trend in literature exposes the reality of works like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. Whether a novel is classified as a nonfiction memoir or a fiction novel depends, not on the writer but on the publisher—a fact that many readers do not realize. According to The Smoking Gun, Frey’s work was denied by publishers because he attempted to have it published as a fictional piece. Only by changing A Million Little Pieces from a novel to a memoir did Frey’s work become published ("Smoking Gun" 1-6).
The reality is that memoirs are currently selling at a much faster pace than fiction novels—a trend that reflects the correlation between published works based on demand. By herding Frey’s work from fiction to nonfiction, a public backlash occurred. This tendency for literature to fluidly migrate from one genre to the next represents the current breakdown in literary genres.
Literary genres no longer are as rigid as they once were. According to genre theory, supported by some literary critics, different branches of literature fall into different categories. The memoir once was easily placed into the “nonfiction” umbrella of works. But, as can be seen with Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, memoirs do not always fall under neat little categories. Sometimes memoirs become a mixture of fact and fiction.
The blending of fact and fiction in memoirs illustrates the drift that is currently the trend in literature. In the future, labeling literary works according to nonfiction and fiction may be removed in the publishing world. Whether there is a first person memoir, a feature from a newspaper, or a biography of a president, all literary works contain a blending of fact and fiction.
Memoir publishing and writing contains the controversy of whether events should be objective or subjective. The problem is that objectivity may not be possible in literature—therefore, subjectivity can easily sink into literature without the writer’s explicit knowledge.
Sources
"A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey's Fiction Addiction." Smoking Gun 04 Jan 2006: 1-6. Web. 27 Jan 2011. <http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/million-little-lies?page=0,5>.
