Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
I’ve always loved memoirs. I’m interested in the personal, how and why people do things, and so a memoir provides me an opportunity to examine the writer’s life through his or her eyes. I even wrote a spiritual memoir several years ago and felt honored when one of my readers said, “I really appreciate how you just tell the story and let me draw my own conclusions.”
Testimonies have been a mainstay of Christian witnessing and publishing. Perhaps the most famous early book was Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, first published in 1563, which detailed the lives and deaths of the early Christians. More modern Christians made Elisabeth Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor, the story of her husband’s martyrdom with four others in Ecuador, a best-seller in 1957.
A memoir allows the writer to recount events through his or her own understanding. While you can argue with the author about what his or her life meant, you really can’t argue with what happened to that person. In his 90 Minutes in Heaven, author and survivor Don Piper doesn’t even bother trying to explain why he had no vital signs for an hour and a half. He believes he went to heaven, and while it doesn’t make logical sense, since we weren’t there, how can we argue with him?
Memoirs are of perennial interest to publishers, though their popularity can wax and wane with the public. The secret is the quality of the writing. Memoirs aren’t the same as an inspirational story of narrative nonfiction that recounts the events in someone’s life. Memoirs are more about the writer’s interior terrain rather than about the events that occured. What changed in the person from the start of the memoir to its conclusion is the question the book answers.
Some of the best memoirs pull no punches in exposing the author’s life. I enjoyed Lauren Winner’s Girl Meets God, and many have commented about the strength of Mary DeMuth’s Thin Places. The author’s ability to express the near-unthinkable makes these works of special interest and value to a reader trying to make sense out of life. (My favorite memoir of all is not from the Christian canon, but it reflects Christian truth: Carlos Eire’s Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy.)
Long ago my honors English teacher said, “I don’t know why you kids bother to read fiction. You should read nonfiction. Not only is it even more amazing than fiction, but it’s also true.”
Reading memoirs, particularly spiritual ones, enables me to catch a glimpse of the unusual way God works in the lives of his followers. It encourages me, gives me ideas about how God might be working in my life, and shows me that each individual relates to life in a different, and often entertaining, way. Difficult circumstances remind me of people’s resilience and how I can trust God with my life, too.
And they’re frequently really great reads.
What memoirs have you enjoyed? Why?
What made you chose them in the first place?
What do you look for in a spiritual memoir?
Are you drawn to a famous person’s book more than an unknown with a fascinating, true story to tell?
As a preacher, I can’t get enough of the memoirs of Charles Spurgeon. Published in two fat volumes, Spurgeon offers snippets chronicling his life, marriage, and worldwide ministry. Mundane stuff, spiritual stuff… it all goes together. Vol 1: The Early Years. Vol 2: The Full Harvest.
Blue Like Jazz has to go on my list too… the writing is that good.
Confessions of a 20th Century Pilgrim, the memoirs of Malcom Muggeridge.
I pick these because I’m looking for understanding and inspiration in my life.
I, too, am a big Spurgeon fan, and I love how he talks about refinement in suffering, pointing out that God knows the reason, and it is FOR OUR GOOD. Also, thank you Michelle for the line about how narrative nonfiction and memoir are different. That’s been a point of confusion as I’ve been looking at my experience that I’ve written about and seeing publishers “categories” that have both in them. I’m assuming that the difference between just “memoir” and “spiritual memoir” might be the writing about transformation by God that takes place in the experience?
Gotta go with Mary DeMuth’s Thin Places. Read it because of Mary’s other novels. It’s a heartbreaking account with lovely prose of a gut-wrenching early life that produced a beautiful woman.
For me to read non-fiction, mostly I have to have an actual or a perceived connection to the author.
I recently enjoyed Harry Bernstein’s memoir, The Invisible Wall. I don’t read a lot of memoirs. What made me choose this one aside from several recommendations was the fact that Bernstein published it when he was in his mid-nineties. He’s published two more books since then, and he just celebrated his 100th birthday. It was beautifully written, read like a novel, and opened up a whole new world to me (England, WWI era, on a street where one side was Jewish, the other Christian).
Would you consider Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place a memoir? It captivated me.
Another memoir I enjoyed is an online translation of Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his shipwreck on the Texas coast (La Relacion de los Naufragios) which left him stranded for seven years among the Indians. Written in 1542, it provides fascinating eyewitness insight into history.
Yeah…I know…I’m weird like that. 🙂
Narrative non-fiction tells a story; memoir gives us insight into the tensions and decision making process of the writer. For that reason, while Corrie ten Boom certainly told us a lot about her feelings, I would call The Hiding Place more a testimony/narrative non-fiction, along with Elisabeth Elliot’s book.
It’s a fine line and in my own reading choices, I don’t worry a lot about it. A well-done memoir tells a story, often about a narrow time in a person’s life–like Mary DeMuth’s about her childhood.
I think Deb’s correct about the difference between a memoir and a spiritual memoir. In my case, my manuscript focused specifically on how God worked in my life over 36 years. I married, had children, moved 12 times and so forth, but the memoir was about my relationship with God and how it grew through 10 very different church denominations; my family was peripheral to the story I wrote about, though obviously they took up a lot of attention and time in my “real” life!
Also, Lynn Dean, historians love memoirs because they are first person accounts of historical events and as such are invaluable in really knowing what life was like at a given time and place.
I’m sure deVaca’s account was fascinating–because he was an eye witness of events we can only imagine.
I love to read 1st-person missionary accounts, whether you call them memoir or testimony/narrative non-fiction. While some (Amy Carmichael) are more contemplative, and others (Bruce Olson’s BRUTCHKO, or Don Richardson’s PEACE CHILD, and you’ve mentioned Elizabeth Eliot) look at people movements, the central character tends to be not the author who experienced it, but the Holy Spirit at work. That kind of stuff sends shivers up my spine. One interesting side note; With both Richardson and Eliot, their first book was their personal story and built a readership. Then they went on to write on a wide variety of topics and readers followed them into other areas because they first new them through the memoirs. Joni Eareckson Tada would be a similar example.
Memoirs can uncover the secret recesses of the soul and unveil the mystery of God’s work within a soul. They are also survivor tales, outlining precarious and unique paths we find ourselves upon, and offering hope to others facing similar challenges and questionings. I would like to recommend a recently published book called Graffiti On My Soul by Johanna, a powerful, nailbiting suspense story which is also a true story of God working in an individual’s life to bring His transcendant peace in the face of death and the horror of evil. For more information see: http://www.eloquentbooks.com./GraffitiOnMySoul.html