Description
Book SynopsisEach year brings a glut of new memoirs, ranging from works by former teachers and celebrity has-beens to disillusioned soldiers and bestselling novelists. In addition to becoming bestsellers in their own right, memoirs have become a popular object of inquiry in the academy and a mainstay in most MFA workshops. Courses in what is now called life-writing study memoir alongside personal essays, diaries, and autobiographies. Memoir: An Introduction proffers a concise history of the genre (and its many subgenres) while taking readers through the various techniques, themes, and debates that have come to characterize the ubiquitous literary form. Its fictional origins are traced to eighteenth-century British novels like Robinson Crusoe and Tom Jones; its early American roots are examined in Benjamin Franklin''s Autobiography and eighteenth-century captivity narratives; and its ethical conundrums are considered with analyses of the imbroglios brought on by the questionable claims in Rigoberta
Trade ReviewCouser has carved out a place on the reading list of any undergraduate life writing module as well as in any bibliography where the classification of genre is a concern ... the book thoughtfully introduces the theoretical foundations upon which the contemporary study of life writing rests; not least of these is the idea that selves are not recorded in life writing but constructed therein. * Claire Lynch, Modern Language Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ; Introduction ; 1. What Memoir Is, and What Memoir Isn't ; 2. Memoir and Genre ; 3. Memoir's Forms ; 4. Memoir's Ethics ; 5. Memoir's American Roots ; 6. Contemporary American Memoir ; 7. The Work of Memoir ; Works Cited ; Index
