Writing About Literature: The Contemporary Memoir

This course explores the complexities, popularity, and controversies of the contemporary memoir. Among the topics we’ll discuss are how authors construct themselves as characters; how they transform memory into narrative; and how they navigate the wobbly boundary between fact and fiction. Most of this course will be devoted to analyzing the craft and ethics of writing memoirs, but we will, on occasion, write short, personal narratives about ourselves, too. Books will include six or seven choices from this list of contenders: The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr; H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt; Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn; Educated by Tara Westover; Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls; The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank; and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion