Memoir by Sheila Johnson

 Through my MA course, I have recently discovered that Memoir is quite a large book category. Firstly, Memoir is different from autobiography. Autobiography is someone writing their entire life story. Memoir, is someone writing just a portion or part of their life story. 

For example, I have recently been really enjoying ACW writer, Fran Hill's book, 'Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?' So much so,  I have to keep disturbing my husband's reading to say, "listen to this.". Fran's book is a very funny diary memoir, which is perhaps one of the easier memoir categories to discern as the book is written in diary form. 



'Anne Frank's Diary' is another example of diary memoir. In both cases, the authors write just a snippet or portion of their lives - Fran is writing about her teaching year and Anne about her teenage years, mostly in hiding, until captured by the Nazis and taken to a Concentration Camp.

I have also discovered, Misery Memoir. There has been a spate of these in the last few years, suggesting that a lot of writers faced a rather difficult childhood forty or fifty years ago. Some still do. For example, Frank McCourt's 'Angela's Ashes' is a classic example of this kind of memoir, as is Dave Pelzer's 'A child called it'.


Tracey Williamson is will be launching her latest book, 'A Beautiful Tapestry' about her friendship with the blind Christian singer, Marilyn Baker, on 13 November. This is also a memoir. I'm guessing it's a character memoir but I'm not sure because I'm still learning about all the different categories. There are more I'm sure that I haven't even mentioned. However, I recommend these and other memoirs to all of our readers. It is such a privilege to learn about a part of another's life story and as we read, perhaps our own life story and our writing become a little richer for the experience.


Sheila Johnson lives in Cheltenham and is a qualified journalist who has written for a number of publications both local and national. She has also written two books under her pen name Sheila Donald, Alpha Male and Waireka. Her website can be found at www.journojohnson.com


Comments

  1. I've always loved memoir, but didn't realise it was called that for quite some time. I so enjoyed the memoir ACW Writers' Day with Emily and Jane and it taught me loads. Have you read Bad Blood by Lorna Sage, Sheila? One of my very favourite memoirs, along with Fran's of course.

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    1. Thanks, Ruth. Will put it on my 'want to read' section. At the moment, I'm really enjoying Nobel short story memoir writer, Alice Munro. She's also recommended, especially if you like genealogy.

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  2. I agree with Ruth about 'Bad Blood' and often use snippets from it in my teaching. Thank you, Sheila, for mentioning my own memoir :) I'm intrigued about the difference between autobiography and memoir and I don't know that I've ever thought it through, so I did a bit of searching and found this 2003 Guardian article fascinating. If you haven't seen it, it could add to your research. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview25

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    1. Brilliant, thanks, Fran. Yes, for our Reflective, Critical, Understanding piece, we have to cite various articles as well as books.

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  3. That's a great piece, Fran, and explains to me, finally, the difference between memoir and autobiography.

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  4. A strange memoir I read a few years ago was 'Girl with a White Dove' - probably in the 'misery' category, it illuminates the very sad circumstances some children grow up inside, and even 'succeed' in some terms (the writer is now an academic teacher of English). Apparently Memoir doesn't 'have to be' all true... when I discovered that, it seemed a bit odd - So we might ponder, as 'Christian writers' whether or not to write memoir, and if so, whether to explain this to the Reader... what do others think? Is this an issue - or not? After all, childhood memories for a start may be quite muddled by lacking the understanding to know what was going on...

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  5. My book is a memoir too. I tried not to make it too miserable! :D

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