The Art of the Memoir
February 3, 2004

Paulette Bates Alden, teacher of creative nonfiction at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and author of the memoir Crossing the Moon: A Journey Through Infertility, spoke with MPR's Greta Cunningham about the controversy over the amount of fiction in some memoirs.

The following is a list of books mentioned by Alden on MPR's Midmorning.

Firebird: A Memoir, by Mark Doty. Harpercollins, 1999. ISBN: 0060193743
Mark Doty offers a harrowing and ultimately redemptive portrait of his childhood and adolescence, providing a glimpse of the horrors of alcoholism and a knowing, sometimes comic, view of suburban America in the 1950s and 1960s.


Heaven's Coast: A Memoir, by Mark Doty. Harpercollins, 1996. ISBN: 006017210X
Doty shares the story of his relationship with lover Wally Roberts, who died of AIDS in 1993, recounting the effect the disease had on their lives and the aftermath of Wally's death.


Romantic Education, by Patricia Hampl. Houghton Mifflin, 1992. ISBN: 0393319059
A thoughtful meditation on the contrasting cultures of East and West follows a contemporary young woman's travels to Czechoslovakia where she explores her personal history, identity, and homeland.


Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery, by Patricia Weaver Francisco. Cliff Street Books, 1999. ISBN: 0060192917
The author recounts her efforts to recover from rape and describes how this crime affects a woman's perspective on passion, marriage, solitude, childbirth, and motherhood.


Stop-Time, by Frank Conroy. Penguin USA, 1993. ISBN: 0140044469
This Boy's Life, by Tobias Wolf. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988. ISBN: 0871132486
The author chronicles the tumultuous events of his early life, discussing his parents' divorce, the nomadic wanderings with his mother that followed, and the strange and eventful process of growing up.


Cherry, by Mary Karr. Random House, 2000. ISBN: 0375416455
In a sequel to The Liars' Club, the author details the tumultuous years of her adolescence, when she pursued her sexual awakening with a rebellious passion that linked her with outrageous men on the fringes of life.


The Story of My Father: A Memoir, by Sue Miller. Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2003. ISBN: 0375414797
The author recalls her relationship with her father as she describes how she became increasingly involved in caring for him as he succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer's disease.


Writing As a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives, by Louise DeSalvo. Harper San Francisco, 1999. ISBN: 0062515195
A study of the process of restorative writing draws on both personal experience and the memoirs of Isabel Allende, Audre Lorde, and others to explain how one can use writing to deal with the conflict and turmoil of one's life.