How true does a memoir have to be? That question has been the basis of an ongoing debate kicked off by the revelation, five years ago, that much of James Frey’s bestselling “A Million Little Pieces” was made up. Unfortunately, it has never been adequately answered. Commentators have tended to gravitate to oversimplifications: one side asserting [...]
Tag Archives: James Frey
Death, truth and memoir: the debate over Joyce Carol Oates’ “A Widow’s Story”
February 17, 2011 – 10:36 am
What is it that we really want from memoir? The kerfuffle this week over “A Widow’s Story,” a narrative from Joyce Carol Oates about the loss of her husband and their many years together brings this question front and center again. Oates was married to Raymond J. Smith for nearly five decades; in addition to [...]
Mary Karr on truth: “the least of my problems as a memoirist, as a writer, is getting my facts right”
July 28, 2010 – 3:23 pm
Author Mary Karr showed up Friday in Grapevine, Texas, in the middle of a thunderstorm to talk about telling the truth. The first keynote speaker at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, Karr addressed an after-dinner crowd of hundreds. Best known for “The Liars’ Club,” “Cherry” and “Lit,” she is also a Pushcart Prize-winning poet and [...]
