New Narrative: Reflections on Life Writing and on Life (10/11)
Memoir: Not Only Your Story
seizing control of one’s narrative has a particular power
Literary critic, Megan O’Grady, in the New York Times, discusses a power of memoir that goes beyond the individual. “Memory is also identity, and for those historically cast to the margins of our national stories, or those who grew up as the silent daughters or queer kids at the family dinner table, seizing control of one’s narrative has a particular power.”
With this view, memory and narrative are less about personal or inner change and more about the socio-political. O’Grady says that today’s memoirists are “focusing on the question of who gets to share their version of things”. When I tell my story and the story of my gay brother who suffered both AIDS and familial distance, I need not look for a new personal narrative as the ending. The change affected in the telling may not be mine for the achieving, but it may take place on a larger scale.
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