Editor's Note appended
One day I'm going to write a memoir. Hopefully I'll be middle-aged, rich and successful by then. Maybe I'll even have servants who will fan me with palm leaves while I consult with the members of Good Charlotte about the difficulties of being white and upper middle class. They seem to know a lot about that. The most important thing I'll do when I write this memoir, however, is lie a lot.
I'm not talking James Frey-style fabrication. I don't plan on inventing fake surgeries or quasi-romances with crack-addicted ex-prostitutes. But up until now, all the well-known memoir writers I've met have been nothing like their autobiographical selves on the page.
For example, Beth Lisick, the woman who wrote "Everybody into the Pool" (2006), seemed like someone who would be outgoing and exciting, given the content of her narrative. Her memoir recounted how she spent most of her young adult life taking temp jobs that involved dancing in banana suits. But when I met her at a Stanford University writing camp in the summer of 2006, she seemed as shy and reserved as a Dartmouth freshman in an introductory philosophy class.
Granted, she was hilarious. As she read a chapter from her book, she delivered her own catchy aphorisms with the acerbic wit that I had grown to love. But I couldn't help but think, "Where is that lady in the banana suit who squatted in motel basements covered in human excrement? Where is her contagious energy and charm?"
It all seemed like a lie to me. I felt like the exciting, engaging woman in the memoir had been a persona Lisick had created in order to get her book published.
That was my first encounter with "literary dishonesty," as I learned to call it. Ironically enough, Lisick herself led me to my next similar situation. When she signed my copy of "Everybody into the Pool," she referenced a "great Southern writer" I should check out. Although I didn't pick up Kirk Read's memoir, "How I Learned to Snap," (2003) until a year and a half later, it turned out to be a good move.
Read's story of growing up as a gay teen in Virginia was both reflective and hilarious. Not only was the book fun to read, but it seemed to tell the story I had been dying to share with people since entering high school. Moreover, his literary voice was clear, concise, droll and charming. So after my initial shock at the memoir's significance ("How the hell did Lisick know I'm gay? Why else would she recommend this to me?"), I started to look up more about Read online. It turned out he was giving a lecture at a nearby college that weekend, so I scurried over there and begged for his autograph.
However, he turned out just like Lisick. Gone was the dashing and charismatic Southern gentleman that I had pictured while reading the book. In his place was an overweight, awkward and rather hairy middle-aged man with strangely-manicured facial hair.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that truth really is stranger than fiction sometimes. Memoirs might seem like bastions of truth and wisdom, but they're really just another platform for writers to create an interesting character, albeit one based on an extreme version of themselves. If you think about it, though, Dartmouth students do this every day. We shape our personalities to best fit who we're talking to at the moment, whether it's a professor, a love interest or just a dinner date.
So when you pick up my best-selling memoir and you frown at my recollections of being a tall, handsome, varsity athlete with a stunning eight pack, just remember: It's still me. I'm just lying a little bit.
