Marvelous Memoirs

Memoir (French: memoria, meaning memory or reminiscence), is a literary nonfiction genre. More specifically, it is a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events, either public or private that took place in the author's life.  It is a sub-genre of autobiography in my opinion.  Even Amazon uses autobiography in the same category as memoir.  Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers has written many memoirs and is one of the few well known authors that write memoirs normally.  According to FlavorWire, Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov is the number one memoir.  Since memoirs as in the same category as autobiographies, the author, the one who is in the story will use “I” instead of “we, one, or you”.  The author will reveal any thoughts or feelings they may have in the story.  The National Book Award does not give out awards to the category of memoir.  If any memoirs win those awards, the books will be listed in the non-fiction category.  The book, Lone Survivor, is a best seller.  You may have heard of the movie which was based directly off of the book. 

My book firsts starts off with Robert going to the airport and recalling the airplane crash.  After that, he jumps around his life after the crash.  He will also recall the events right after the crash and when he talks to the first responders.  He also talks about him meeting up with the survivors of the crash and how they have changed and how they have stayed the same.  He uses the first person point of view and gives description of what the person would actually see.  The feeling of the crash and the felling and smell of the jet fuel is so unreal because he went through normal people will never feel in their lives.  He shares his life also almost like an autobiography.  The reader gets to know the author very well.  He doesn’t use much dialogue as much as fictional books.  He uses a few lines which are important but he just tells the reader what physically happened. 

 

Sources:

Wikipedia

Engrade

FlavorWire

Amazon

National Book Awards