Some thoughts on Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir

My father is the quintessential glass-half-full person. When describing him, I like to point out that he’s never seen a bad movie and never had a bad meal. Ever. I’m a bit like my optimist father when it comes to books. It takes a lot for me to say that a book is not worth reading.

I’ve certainly read bad writing. I’ve stomached annoying characters. I’ve scratched my head at overwrought tales. I’ve fantasized about karmic justice coming around to male authors who write awful sex scenes. But, I’ve never read a bad book. Save for one, which I won’t name. Even the bad, not-to-be-named book entertained me. To entertain, to make you feel, or think—isn’t this what books are all about? 

The fact that I read a lot of books and I enjoy most of them, means that the people in my life hear a lot about the books I read. It has a bit of a “girl who cries wolf” effect. Is this the time I should listen to her and put it on my reading list? If you’re a fellow writer, yes. The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr belongs on your craft reading nightstand. 

I felt as if Karr took me aside, shook me by the shoulders, and had a “come-to-Jesus” talk with me, writer-to-writer. Karr’s book is not just for memoirists, either. Her brilliant insights on honing your voice are worth reading whatever your genre. At the end of the day, aren’t all characters, real or imagined, driven by their individual histories and their pain? Their journeys are about processing this past through the lens of the contemporary narrative. And, that processing, or finding meaning, is the foundation of their voice.

As I’m reading The Art of Memoir, I’ve been struggling a bit with the characters in my novel. My protagonist is a fictionalized version of me. Her voice comes easy because she’s in my brain, she’s in my heart. Characters inspired by my grandmother and grandfather come naturally as well. I can channel how they talk, how they see the world because I know their stories. I know their motivations. I know their pain. But, my imagined characters feel flat. And, then I read this quote that Karr included by writer Don DeLillo, "a fiction writer starts with meaning and then manufactures events to represent it; a memoirist starts with events, then derives meaning from them.” Suddenly, I had a flash of insight. What if I flip the script on DeLillo’s quote? What if I start with imagined events in my characters’ pasts, as I would writing memoir? With my fictional characters, I need to manufacture some skin in the game, skin by virtue of their history. Karr writes, “a curious mind probing for truth may well set your scribbling ass free.” Approaching my fictional characters with curiosity, instead of trying to force-feed their story, might just help my scribbling ass.

Then, I had the thought that, perhaps, my characters don’t need to be wholly imagined. To write fully-formed characters that people invest in, maybe the skin I need in the game is my own? If I can channel the various voices inherent in me for my characters, then writing them would feel better, at least. Karr writes, “The secret to any voice grows from a writer’s finding a tractor beam of inner truth about psychological conflicts to shine the way.” Karr’s perspective on voice is the perfect antidote to feeling disconnected from your story and your characters, whether you are writing fiction, memoir, or a hybrid of the two.

Her insights on memoir are brilliant, and I found myself praying at the altar of Karr. Yes! Yes! Yes! I feel the pull towards memoir and personal essay, and I got the clarity that, at least constitutionally, I’m built for that genre. Not that I want to definitively say that and walk away from other genres right now. I’m currently in a dating-around phase. I found myself relating to her lens when she talks about her interest in the “human comedy” and that her “inner life sometimes felt bigger than my exterior.” She says that the best memoirs, "come from the soul of a human unit oddly compelled to root out the past’s truth for his own deeply felt reasons.” That is a motivation I feel at my core.

Karr’s book is chock-full of craft gold, too. In the chapter, “On Finding the Nature of Your Talent,” Karr offers practical advice to help you suss out your writerly persona. Exercises on how people perceive you, learning what your blind spots are, and coming to terms with how you are trying to appear, were incredibly useful. Karr also talks about how to deal with your family if even only fictionalized versions of them make an appearance in your work. In a bit of “no-shit-but-thank-you-Mary,” she mentions that she cannot write with fake names. If the characters are real, and Karr plans to cloak their identities under different names, she waits until she’s done and then does the good ol’ find-and-replace. Writers of all genres will appreciate her take on information, facts, and data, when she talks about how to skillfully package it by “sprinkling like pepper,” into your story so that they “hold psychological interest,” but are otherwise invisible. 

It turns out that The Art of Memoir was the book I needed to read right now. It helped refine my writing purpose. And, since I'm feeling a bit lost in my book, it also helped me feel at home in the maze. Words that I need to take on board and write on a post-it on my bathroom mirror, Karr writes, "Being lost—as I’ve said elsewhere—is a prelude to finding new paths. And any curious writer will have to do a lot of wandering before any book’s done.”