James Song

Memoirist Vivian Gornick says the popularity of memoirs is due partly to American history. Since the sixties, we’ve been giving testimonies as a culture—as activitists for civil rights, feminism, the environment, etc.—which carried over to prose and to the personal space. This explains the tendency for memoirs to be about personal or family secrets and trauma.

The earliest one I know of in this vein is A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (1961). Then there is the classic by Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (2005).

Apparently, it’s the time for memoir, if only because trauma sells. There have been too many to count: about death of loved ones, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, addiction, coming out stories, being on the margins. Stories of the oppression of the oppressed colors our imagination.

Is the genre still fresh?

This is the work sample I wrote for my MFA application, part of what I hope will one day be a memoir, one that looks as much to the Other and to God as much as it does to the self.