Memoirs: Truth or Lies?

Augusten Burroughs and his brother were on the Sunday morning news today. The topic was whether the author of a memoir has the creative license to exaggerate and whether or not a memoir someone's perspective or the actual true-to-god facts? Running with Scissors was under fire.

That said, I don't understand the question. A memoir is a literary device. A LITERARY device. I thought by definition, a memoir is your memories. Or, how you remember it. And how you remember things as you look back on them, or even how you saw them at the time, is never going to be what actually happened. And your perspective is never going to be the same is anyone else's-even if they just slightly differ. Any beginner psych class is going to tell you that. If you want to write word for word the absolute truth of what happened, write a researched with plenty of sources autobiography. Or have someone who has never met you and certainly wasn't a part of your life and able to form any type of firsthand opinion of you to research your life and write your biography. Otherwise, forget the truth and nothing but the truth. Memories don't work that way.

Memoirs are creative. They allow personality to be expressed within the words chosen and within the manner in which they are written.

And of course, James Frey's a A Million Little Pieces was attacked. What's that saying? No publicity is bad publicity? Look what happened with Frey's book-Oprah may be pissed, but its sales have jumped. And he wasn't on her show once, but twice. I come from the publishing world. Do you know what a feat it is to get Oprah to review your book? So what if she's yelling at you? If I have to sit through Oprah yelling at me in order to be interviewed by her twice regarding my writing, bring it on!

Of course James Frey lied. He was a drug addict. That's what drug addicts do. That whole situation surrounding that book and Oprah (please...) would have made my literary deconstruction professor Perry Meisel's head explode with joy. He could have done a whole semester on that. That's the whole beauty of the book. He wrote about his life. A life of lies. And he lied throughout the whole thing. What am I missing? That's brilliant.

I write what I consider memoirs. They're not totally true. There are exaggerations and character composites and things I just add for effect. I will be the first to admit this. But I'm not lying in my writing. What I write is truth based. Just with a spin. When I write, I take on a creative endeavor. A creative endeavor relies on creativity. And what's creativity? Making stuff up. In a way. And if you think differently and believe everything you read is the absolute truth, that's not my fault when you end up feeling like an idiot. These pieces are memoirs. Read them with a grain of salt. They're meant to entertain you. To bring you a new perspective-my perspective. Not necessarily to teach you a life changing lesson. If you do learn something, fantastic. If you don't, I hope you had a good read.

And when it comes down to it, whether or not you are reading the absolute truth, the truth as someone remembers it, the truth with some exaggerations, or a complete lie, there really are no personal consequences-you'll be just fine. But if you are looking for that type of life-altering writing that requires your complete trust and belief, you are definitely standing in the wrong section of the book store.