Art of memoir /
Karr breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, opening our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminating the cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
HarperCollinsPublishers,
[2015]
|
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
Table of Contents:
- Caveat emptor
- Preface: Welcome to my chew toy
- The past's vigor
- The truth contract twixt writer and reader
- Why not to write a memoir: plus a pop quiz to protect the bleeding & box out the rigid
- A voice conjures the human who utters it
- Don't try this at home: the seductive, narcissistic count
- Sacred carnality
- How to choose a detail
- Hucksters, the deluded, and big pat liars
- Interiority and inner enemy--private agonies read deeper than external whammies
- On finding the nature of your talent
- The visionary Maxine Hong Kingston
- Dealing with beloveds (on and off the page)
- On information, facts, and data
- Personal run-ins with fake voices
- On book structure and the order of information
- The road to hell is paved with exaggeration
- Blind spots and false selves
- Truth hunger: the public and private burning of Kathryn Harrison
- Old-school technologies for the stalled novice
- Major reversals in Cherry and Lit
- Why memoirs fail
- An incomplete checklist to stave off dread
- Michael Herr: start in Kansas, end in Oz
- Against vanity: in praise of revision.