Post #5: Truth in a Memoir

Books that are considered non-fiction need to be completely nonfiction in the authors mind. A nonfiction book needs to be factual. Laila Lalami says, “Naturally, in the process of writing, there are things that you remember differently than other people.” If the author recalls a certain event one way, but another author recalls that same event in a different way they can both be nonfiction. People experience things differently, but that shouldn't make how they feel fiction.  Books that are written to be called nonfiction need to have a strong factual evidence of what happened along with the author’s way of interpreting that event.

Half-truths are not okay when telling a story. A half-truth book changes from nonfiction to fiction with each lie. A memoir is not truly a memoir unless the events actually happened to the writer. Seth Greenland says, “And a memoir if it’s not…if it has things in it that are made up…I’m not sure it’s a novel…you could make the argument that it’s a novel, but it’s certainly not a memoir.” If the truth is stretched, if scenes are made up, or if choices are differing from what actually happened it should be considered a realistic fiction novel, rather than a memoir. There is room for error in places such as dialogue because no one is going to be able to remember the exact words said in a situation that happened 5 years ago, 5 months ago, or even 5 weeks ago. Dialogue can be falsified as long as the conversation did take place and the gist matches what the real life conversation was about.

We do need lines between fiction and nonfiction. One way a reader can classify themselves is as a fiction or nonfiction reader, without the genre lines readers would have a harder time finding what they want to read. I like to read dystopian and realistic fiction novels, but if I didn't have those labels it would be much harder to find books that are similar to books that I have read in the past. Also, the genre of the book is its purpose. If the genre is taken away so is the books main purpose, this is why books need to be classified into genres.