TELLING THE TRUTH — how to do it, why it’s important, and how to avoid the temptation to stray from it – is perhaps the gnarliest of topics for memoir writers. And so I leave it to Beth Kephart, author of the marvelous new book, Handling the Truth, On The Writing of Memoir, to take on this round with you. I’ve have at this topic before, and it’s a good one. Beth’s book, just out, is a must-read for all of us who love this genre. Here’s a preview. Enjoy.
Telling the Truth When Writing Memoir
By Beth Kephart
Memoir—that lovely, misunderstood, often contorted beast of a genre—is not, contrary to what some might say, the literary equivalent of a confessional. It is not the Sacrament of Penance. It is not an unmodulated whisper. Memoir is a life story, artfully (honestly) resurrected. It is a quest to understand those things that matter. It is a singular tale with universal consequence. It is the writer speaking not just of herself but of the human condition.
Or should be.
Loved by many, attacked ferociously, honored and muddied, memoir persists because we persist because we all have stories. I teach the genre and I’ve dared to write it. I watch it get made, broken down, and reconciled.
And what surprises me still, after all this time, is how eager some memoir writers are to bend or break the truth. It didn’t really happen quite like that, but the fiction makes for a better tale. It wasn’t winter when it happened, but I’m better with the details of summer. I will change her name and every single thing about her, so that she can’t come after me, complaining. She was sipping tea, but I prefer soda.
It’s true, of course, that truth is elusive, that memory is hardly reliable, that my version is not your version, and that elisions are, by their very nature, a form of white lie. What concerns me—what alarms me—is the active distortion of truth for the sake of a somehow “better” story.
It begins, I find, with the knowing disruption of a single, minor detail. The car he drove. The horse’s color. The size of the caterpillar. No harm in that, the writer thinks. But all of a sudden there’s a hole in the dike. There’s a little of gush of fiction flowing, and pretty soon anything goes. Give yourself permission to lie on purpose with one little thing, and you’ve yourself permission to lie writing forward.
Vigilance is constraining, it’s a wagging finger, it’s an old school marm. It’s so much easier to lie; like comfort food, it can feel good at the time. But truth—your best rendering of it, your most honest try—is, in the end, what you must stand behind. Don’t lie on the little things. Don’t start the precipitous slide.
Handling the Truth, an excerpt
Prefatory
Maybe the audacity of it thrills you. Maybe it’s always been like this: You out on the edge with your verity serums, your odd-sized heart, your wet eyes, urging. Maybe this is what you are good for, after all, or good at, though there, you’ve done it again: wanted proof, suggested the possibility. You teach memoir. You negotiate truth. Goodness doesn’t matter here. Bearing witness does.
Memoir is a strut and a confession, a whisper in the ear, a scream. Memoir performs, then cedes. It is the work of thieves. It is a seduction and a sleight of hand, and the world won’t rise above it.
Or you won’t. You in the Victorian manse at the edge of the Ivy League campus, where you arrive early and sit in the attitude of prayer. You who know something not just of the toil but also of the psychic cost, the pummeling doubt, the lacerating regrets that live in the aftermath of public confession. You have written memoir in search of the lessons children teach and in confusion over the entanglements of friendships. You have written in despair regarding the sensational impossibility of knowing another, in defense of the imperiled imagination, and in the throes of the lonesome sink toward middle age. You have written quiet and expected quiet, and yet a terrible noise has hurried in— a churlish self-recrimination that cluttered the early hours when clear-minded nonmemoirists slept. You have learned from all that. You have decided. Memoir is, and will still be, but cautions must be taken.
Teaching memoir is teaching verge. It’s teaching questions: Who are you? Where have you been? Where are you going? What do you believe in? What will you fight for? What is the sound of your voice? It’s teaching now against then, and leave that out to put this in, and yes, maybe that happened, but what does it mean? An affront? You hope not. A calling? Probably.
You enter a classroom of students you have never seen before, and over the course of a semester you travel—their forgotten paraphernalia in the well of their backpacks, those tattoos on their wrists, those bio notes inked onto the palm of one hand. They will remember their mother’s London broil, but not the recipe. They will proffer a profusion of umbrellas and a poor-fitting snowsuit, a pair of polka-dotted boots, red roses at a Pakistani grave, a white billiard ball, a pink-and-orange sari, a box with a secret bottom, Ciao Bella gelato. Someone will make a rat-a-tat out of a remembered list. Someone will walk you through the corridors of the sick or through the staged room of a movie set or beside the big bike that will take them far. Someone will say, Teach me how to write like this, and someone will ask what good writing is, and you will read out loud from the memoirs you have loved, debunk (systematically) and proselytize (effusively), perform Patti Smith and Terrence Des Pres, Geoffrey Wolff and Mark Richard, Marie Arana and Mary Karr, William Fiennes and Michael Ondaatje, C. K. Williams and Natalie Kusz. You will play recordings of Sylvia Plath reciting “Lady Lazarus” and Etheridge Knight intoning “The Idea of Ancestry,” and you will say, in a room made dark by encrusted velvet and mahogany stain, You tell me good. You tell me why. Know your opinions and defend them.
These aspiring makers of memoir are who you believe and what you believe in—the smiley face tie he wears on Frat Rush Tuesdays, the cheerful interval between her two front teeth, the planks he carries in his dark-blue backpack, the accoutrements of power lifting. Enamored of the color red and hip-hop, declaring you their “galentine,” impersonating Whitman, missing their mothers, missing their dead, they are, simply and complexly, human, and they may not trust themselves with truth, but they have to trust one another. You insist that they earn the trust of one another.
And so you will send them out into the world with cameras. And so you will sit them down with songs. And so you will ask them to retrieve what they lost and, after that, to leave aside the merely incidental. You will set a box of cookies on the table, some chocolate-covered berries, some salt-encrusted chips, and then (at last) get out of the way, for every memoir must in the end and on its own emerge and bleed and scab.
Audacity was the wrong word; you see that now. The word, in fact, is privilege. Teaching, after all these years, is the marrow in your bones. Truth is your obsession.
Excerpted from HANDLING THE TRUTH by Beth Kephart. Copyright (c) 2013 by Beth Kephart. Reprinted by arrangement with Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Author’s bio
Beth Kephart teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, which is just out and published by Gotham. She blogs daily on literature and life at beth-kephart.blogspot.com.
AND THE WINNER IS…
I hope you enjoy Writing Lessons. Featuring well-published writers of our favorite genre, each installment of the series will take on one short topic that addresses how to write memoir, and will include a great big book giveaway.
It’s my way of saying thanks for coming by.
The contest for this book is now closed. Please see the next installment of Writing Lessons.
The winner of Beth Kephart’s fine book is Jenn. Congratulations, Jenn! I’ll be in touch to send your book.
Linda C. Wisniewski says
Beth Kephart writes beautiful prose.She remembers these details of her students bodies, backpacks, stories, and describes them so well.
I often wonder about using our best recollection if we can’t remember details. Is that lying? As long as we are true to the person’s voice, style of clothing, etc., is it lying to guess at these descriptive details?
Beth Kephart says
It is such an honor to be here with you, Marion. Thank you for all you do for this genre, and for writers.
marion says
So glad you are here, Beth. Thank you.
Jenn says
I love learning about new books on memoir writing! I learned from reading the excerpt that some of your best tools for resurrecting old memories are photos and music. Thank you for featuring Beth.
Beth Kephart says
And, a flower for you: http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/2013/08/visiting-with-marion-roach-smith-and.html
Serena says
I loved this book, and there is advice not only for memoir, but that which can be applied to any genre a writer is tackling. I’m lucky to have my review of her wonderful book up today — launch day for Handling the Truth: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2013/08/handling-the-truth-by-beth-kephart.html
Debora says
I love this line …”for every memoir must in the end and on its own emerge and bleed and scab” which gets at the raw power of memory and the need to capture it. I hope to have the courage to do this!
Charlotte Ashurst McDaniel says
Hello, again,
I always find some sentence in these Memoir Excerpts, that stir me, make me rethink.
I was particularly inspired by, “It’s teaching now against then, and leave that out to put this in, and yes, maybe that happened, but what does it mean? An affront? You hope not. A calling? Probably.”
Yes. What does it mean? What DOES it mean? in a world sixty-five years ago, when everyone that mattered is dead?
I do like my last blog post: A Gloved & Girdled Memoir
constance b. wilder says
Perhaps the most rewarding comment that I receive about my memoir Above and Beyond Wellfleet:A memoir about welcoming life after loss is when the word “honest” is used to describe the reaction to the book. Just yesterday, I received a copy of a thank you note written to a friend who had shared my book–this comment is what made my heart sing :”I must say, I love this book–it speaks to me, it gives clarity to my heart and Constance dares to be honest…”
Thank you, Marion, you always inspire with what you share and teach. I especially liked the example Beth used (and I paraphrase) “it wasn’t winter when it happened, I’m more comfortable with the details of summer.” Change one truthful detail, and everything is up for grabs.
Thank you, Marion for sharing the truth with us.
Connie
marion says
Hi, Constance.
Lovely to read you here again. Many thanks for the supportive and kind words here. I am honored to have writers such as Beth — and you — here on the blog. I am learning so very much in this Writing Lessons series. Please come back soon.
Allison Hawkins says
I loved your sentence mentioning Patti Smith and Michael Ondaatje. I love her music, especially the album Easter, and have been known to sing Because the Night at karaoke.
Right now I’m reading Ondaajte’s Billy the Kid as part of my MFA reading list. Amazing. Love The English Patient too.
I am in the process of writing memoir of a 4 yr relationship that ties in with my father’s death. The thing is, I have journals which chronicled the events in real time.
I’m glad you are of the school of “no little white lies to make the story better.”
Thank you!!!
Beth Kephart says
What incredibly beautiful comments on an incredibly beautiful blog! I am feeling very honored today. Ondaatje, Oh, Allison. Yes. isn’t he the man!?
Judith Henry says
Beth – Today, “Handling the Truth” was finally downloaded onto my kindle and I knew immediately what a mistake that was. Like Marion’s guide, “The Memoir Project” , yours is a book to be highlighted, dog-eared, cluttered with margin notes and enjoyed as a dining companion when no one else will do. I see a hard copy in my future. Inspiring and beautifully written. Thank you.
Patricia Shinaberger says
Find a way to tell the truth even when it hurts. For a long while, I would just freeze up every time I attempted to write my ex-husband’s name……I changed a couple of letters and the words just poured out of me, Now that the story is going on the fifth draft, I can finally understand him…..and what the war did to him, I can now write his given name.
Thank you for the lesson and for your list of memorists that I must read.
Beth Kephart says
I am so completely heartened by the words of all of you—heartened, informed, uplifted. Huge thanks.
Elisabeth Kinsey says
Vigilance to the truth is key and creating persona moves your real people through the story. Stick to the facts and change the season only if it serves the plot. If my mother hopped in only a slip as the ants raced up her legs, to put her in the fall or summer doesn’t affect her hop or the fact that she did wear a slip while others watched. If the change doesn’t affect the truth, use it.
Barbara McDowell Whitt says
Thank you, Marion, for posting the excerpt from Beth Kephart’s book on memoir writing, Handling the Truth, On the Writing of Memoir.
Beth, you taught me a new word: elisions (as in leaving something out). You wrote that “…elisions are, by their very nature, a form of white lie.” You went on to say, “What concerns me – what alarms me – is the active distortion of truth for the sake of a somehow ‘better’ story.”
I was reading a memoir, thoroughly absorbed in the writer’s ability to give interesting details and describe various characters from her life, when I came to a chapter that didn’t “fit” and didn’t “make sense” with all of her preceding “facts.” I felt let down and disappointed.
Thank you for your thoughts on this very important topic for memoir writers.
marion says
Hi, Barbara:
You are most welcome. I am loving these lessons, scribbling away, taking notes, making mental notes, learning, learning, learning. So glad you feel the same. Please come back for more.
diane heath says
I think this is the best writing lesson yet. speaking the truth. no matter.
Beth Kephart says
What a warm, welcoming community this is. We agree, we disagree, we talk it through, we consider. The life of the mind at its finest. Thank you all, and thank you Marion.
marion says
So glad to have you here, Beth. It’s a gift beyond rubies.
Nancy Harrigan says
Oh, that we could “do” mental illness as retirees “do’ Spain. But, not a trip, mental illness is a merry-go-round pretending to be a roller coaster. A shadow hovering over my child came along for the ride and I was a captive for 3/4 of my life. Crises and benefices crowded the years.
Memory was a hodgepodge of facilities, medications, good times and bad — without shape or sense. My doctor husband made it our family secret and I was an obedient keeper.
At 80, I began the struggle to write memoir and found continuity. Fragments began to form a mosaic. I discovered a life worthy and well lived. I write the truth as Beth insists and so confine my description to “my child” — no details. Thank you, Beth and Marion.
marion says
You are most welcome, Nancy.
So glad to read you here.
Yes, if we could “do” mental illness. What a great expression, and what a powerful thought.
Thank you for giving us that to ponder.
Please come back soon.
Katherine Stevenson says
I too LOVE these writing lessons Marion.
Thank you everyone for your fabulous comments which I take to heart.
marion says
Thank you, Katherine.
How kind of you to stop by to tell us.
I am so glad that you love these lessons.
It is an honor to have these writers here. I am delighted to be able to share them with you.
Read on, sister!
Sherry says
I enjoy reading Beth’s memoirs so very much. I appreciate them because she does search for the truth. Truth that is not her isolated truth only but truth as it connects her to her community and to her world. She is searching for it because it matters in the questions she needs answered in order to move forward. Finding the truth as she searches for answers gives her a gauge that tells her if she has grown and where that growth may lead her next. We readers connect to this because it helps us to reflect on our own journeys to do the same. I am so excited to read Handling the Truth! Thank you for the giveaway opportunity and for this post.