When Anthony Doerr Calls: Finding the Narrative River in Memoir

By Turner Houston

I look at the overflowing pile of the second revision of my memoir. Now what? Someone has to help me, but not just anyone. Exhausted, I drop my head down on the manuscript and close my eyes, trying to conjure someone who’ll understand what I’m trying to capture…

Somewhere in the darkness my phone shrills. An Idaho area code. I don’t know anyone in Idaho. Must be yet another frigging scam call.

“NOW WHAT?” I scream into the phone.

There’s the sound of… something o...