Tag Archives: Memoir

“That was my mistake.”

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Tony Herman

Some memoirs resemble novels — they build a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The challenge for the writer is to make it interesting for readers who already know the ending. In the case of Truth & … Continue reading →

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“Denial was a talent she greatly admired. She could have been Gentile, except, of course, she wasn’t.”

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Tony Herman

How does a humorist write about death? This is what I wondered when I opened Delia Ephron‘s memoir, which has a piece called “Losing Nora” about her famous sister. She relies a lot on the formula that we see in … Continue reading →

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“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”

Posted on August 21, 2014 by Tony Herman

In the tenth anniversary edition of  the memoir The Liar’s Club, Mary Karr writes, “Just as the novel form once took up experiences of urban industrialized society that weren’t being addressed in sermons or epistles or epic poems, so memoir — … Continue reading →

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“Don’t begin with an idea: begin with the point of the pen touching paper.”

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Tony Herman

Uniquely in America, there is “a desire to understand in the heat of living,” says Natalie Goldberg in her book about the practice of writing memoir. Don’t think of memoirs as records of events.  Instead, think of it as a chance to … Continue reading →

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