Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life

by Patricia Hampl (Editor), Elaine Tyler May (Editor), Matt Becker (Contributor)

"The memoir has been, on the one hand, a startling success story in American publishing in the past quarter century. But it has also been literature's changeling, the bad apple, ever suspect, slightly illegitimate, a brassy parvenu talking too much about itself." - Patricia Hampl, "You're History"

Balancing precariously between history and literature, memoir writers have finally found their place on the bookshelf. But increased notoriety brings intense memoirists are expected to create a narrative worthy of fiction while also staying true to the facts. Historians, too, handle tricky issues of writing from "real life," when imagination must fill gaps in the historical record.

In this landmark collection, Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May have gathered fourteen original essays from award-winning memoirists and historians. Whether the record emerges from archival sources or from personal memory, these writers show how to make the leap to telling a good story, while also telling us true.

Andre Aciman, Matt Becker, June Cross, Carlos Eire, Helen Epstein, Samuel G Freedman, Patricia Hampl, Fenton Johnson, Alice Kaplan, Annette Kobak, Michael MacDonald, Elaine Tyler May, Cheri Register, D. J. Waldie

Patricia Hampl is the author of three memoirs, including most recently The Florist's Daughter. Elaine Tyler May has written several books on twentieth-century American history. Both are Regents Professors at the University of Minnesota.

Genres: Memoir, Writing, Essays, History, Nonfiction, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Patricia Hampl is an American memoirist, writer, lecturer, and educator. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and is one of the founding members of the Loft Literary Center.

Reviews

[Elizabeth W.]

The quotation from "Choice": "Reading each of these superb and provocative essays, readers understand history in the memoir and memoir in the history. What all the writers recognize is that they and their disciplines all deal with the vagaries of memory and how humans construct meaning in the present through memoir, however expressed."

Deep into writing a memoir, I find this collection of essays moving and challenging. I found myself thinking, "Better get on with telling your story, E. If you don't, you may find yourself being a character in someone else's story!" The writing of a memoir in these times of uprootedness and depersonalizing forces running wild affirms the dignity and value of an individual's experience.

[Christy]

More encouragement for continuing with my writing.

[Sarah]

Interesting insights into the place of memoir in non fiction

[Giovanna]

Interesting collection of essays about writing memoir, which came about from a 2007 U of Minnesota conference called 'Who's Got the Story--Memoir as History/History as Memoir' (you can see video of the panel discussions there). Includes essays by Patricia Hampl, Carlos Eire, D.J. Waldie, and many more. I imagine I'll return to this...

[Cynthia]

I read most of the essays in this book--most interested in the one by Carlos Eire, because my father knew him. Interested also in the discussions of how history and memoir influence each other, the complexity of time in memoir, how past influenced present. Not actually finished, but will not read all of the essays in this book. Have a couple more I want to read.

[Heather]

I enjoyed the authors' reflections on what it meant to them to create a memoir--some of them were redundant, though, and almost none really shed much technical light on how to structure a memoir, something that I was hoping for when I picked up the book.

[Heather]

A couple of the essays in this book were interesting, but overall, it did not grab my attention.

[Anne]

A good collection of essays...something for everyone interested in memoir as a genre.

[Zen]

Review to follow :)

[Patricia N. McLaughlin]

This collection of essays contains a treasure trove of tips for writing memoir—especially how to tell a good story while remaining “loyal to the truth” and “true to the facts”—written by award-winning memoirists and historians. Each of the 14 essays is prefaced by an excerpt from the author’s memoir. The editors’ Introduction provides an enlightening overview of the memoir genre, a review of its recent controversies (e.g., James Frey), and a summary of the 2007 panel discussion on memoir as intersection of history and fiction that prompted the book’s publication.

[Kate]

To be frank, I only read the chapter that Patricia Hampl wrote. Oooooooooooooooooooooh I absolutely love Patricia Hampl.

[Kristi]

Writers reference lots of regional authors & great titles.