Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 5 Editor's Choice: 2
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the lure of scatology
[Read the article: Years of magical thinking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Okay, I admit it. I am a voyeur big time. Write about feces fortune reading and I'm there. I liked his books. I wouldn't read them again, but I'm glad I did. I hold an MFA, and I've also written a memoir which was published a few years ago. My memoir received some sound reviews, including Salon and the Washington Post. Not surprisingly, I don't remember the praise as much as I do the criticism. But bad reviews are only one of many risks associated with writing. And no one makes himself or herself more vulnerable than the memoir writer.
I don't know if Augusten Burroughs fancies himself a literary writer or if he just knows he can tell a good story, by God, so he will. And he did exactly that, to the apparent pleasure of the book reading public. Storytelling is great; we're all suckers for a great story. A literary storyteller brings something new to the table. She's not someone sitting at a bar with a repetoire of anecdotes--instead she crafts as carefully and meticulously as any artist;if she is successful, she will do something with the language that pierces the reader's heart. She will engender a chourus of amen from her readers. I get the feeling this isn't Burroughs' goal. He's doing tricks. He's juggling bowling balls and pulling a quarter out from behind a reader's ear. Take it for what it is.
One last note: it is not possible to recall 30 year old conversations any more than one can recall what one wore on a long ago Saturday or what the weather was like on the first day of school. A memoir demands that level of invention. Frank McCourt said that memoir was an impression more than anything else, and as every writer knows, abstract description cannot possibly bridge the gap between the writer and the reader. In order for that connection to be made, a world has to be created, a world where banalities are exchanged, blue dresses have a rip on the shoulder and the day was cloudy, a bit hazy, but otherwise fine.