• Home

Sara Mansfield Taber

~ Thoughts on Writing, Spies, Global Nomads and Other Clandestine Musings

Sara Mansfield Taber

Monthly Archives: August 2012

What is the truth… in memoir? 9: A moody affair

27 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Sara Mansfield Taber in Born Under an Assumed Name, Memoir Writing, On Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

What is the truth...in memoir?

And then, in addition to the vagaries of memory that plague the memoir-attempter, there are the ups and downs, the changing moods, of the memoirist at her desk.  One week, I was inclined, while writing, to emphasize the health of my family: how we laughed through the miseries of dysentery and worms, and traipsed the castle parks of Europe.  The next, I could only see the sickness, the quarreling in the car.  The next, I felt, “But that’s not right.  Ours is a story of adaptivity.  We all did extremely well with the hands we were dealt.”

Each day, conceivably, I could have knit, out of the strands of my life, a sweater that seemed to fit.  And the sweater I would knit the following day, in all likelihood, would be a different one.  But let’s stop this now—you see how easily one gets ones’ fingers all mixed up in a tangle of yarn, how easily one could toss the whole mess down.

What is the truth… in memoir? 8: How do you like your eggs?

20 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Sara Mansfield Taber in Born Under an Assumed Name, Memoir Writing, On Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

What is the truth...in memoir?

Having established the portrayal of emotional truth as the purview of my memoir, we go back now to those layers of paintings, those versions of our lives brushed in one on top of the other, that keep shining out of the frame.  I’ve made my qualified vow to the truth, but which emotional truth ought I to tell?

My childhood, spent criss-crossing the globe, was a rich, exotic lark, deliciously happy.

My childhood was a field of grief, rent by constant moves, brittle secrets, losses, self-doubt, and friction. 

In order to tell you the truth of my childhood, which story do I tell?  What do I show you, or present to you on this platter, my book?  The triumphant, happy, hearty story—the American success story?  Or the bogged-down, sad, troubled one a Frenchwoman might write?

As I composed my memoir, I could not be happy with either the chirpy, hearty, wasn’t-I-happy story, nor did I want to serve you up the memoir of a victim—because neither was true.  I was both pitiful and confident.  Both ecstasy and sadness were commonplace in my life, positive and negative experiences waxed and waned, every which way, all over town.  I groped for balance.  Life, to me, has always been a mix of happy and sad. I cleave to a belief in rendering a proportionate mixture of trouble and triumph.  Now then, trying to be as objective as I can be:  If you looked at a movie of my childhood, you might say, “This is the story of a sensitive, shy kid who grew up to be, for the most part, strong and happy, with many struggles along the way.”  But that is just me, talking.  You might say, “Wow, what a cool, lucky childhood,” or “I wouldn’t have gone through that for the world.”

Beyond the happy-sad dichotomy, there are so many stories I could have told that would be a version of the truth:

The shy, lonely, grieving girl

The valiant girl with the spy glass, who could sail any sea

The girl who ended up on a U.S. Air Force psychiatric ward

My brave, inspirational mother

My terrified mother

My war with my mother

My perfect father

My father the tortured spy

A life within secrets

My childhood that zig-zagged across the globe

The people I have loved

My crazy schools

Itinerance and its consequences

Cultures I have known

One girl’s story of what it means to be American

Truth is multiple.  Each story is a layer (and each of these, to a degree, shows through the paint in my memoir).  I think of each of these slants, each of these books, and the many more I could conceivably write, as “The Lives of SMT.”  As the essayist Philip Lopate has written, in each essay he writes, he selects and exaggerates a certain part of himself in order to carve it in relief.  At the hypothetical end of his life, if you were to read the entire body of his work (assuming it was complete), as it built up, in layers on his canvas, you might only then have a near-full sense of the man.

So there you sit before the thicket of memories, a ramble of wooded habitats stretched to the horizon.  Some of the forests are barbed, some lush and deciduous, some sparse and piny, set in thin air.  In which do you set your story?

To use another metaphor, attempting memoir is like breaking yourself open and having to put yourself together again.  How do you like your eggs? Hard-boiled?  Scrambled?  Over easy?  Poached?  With Hollandaise sauce at the Ritz?

What is the truth… in memoir? 7: A version of the truth

13 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Sara Mansfield Taber in Born Under an Assumed Name, Memoir Writing, On Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

What is the truth...in memoir?

All I could offer in my memoir was my truth—as best as I could tell it.  And the only truth I could offer, as many have said, was a version of the truth.  I could only offer my version of the truth, and I could offer only one of my versions of the truth.  (Remember the layers of paintings?)  Everyone has their truth and my memoir could present mine, and no one else’s.  In the memoir, I didn’t intend to violate anyone else’s truth.  That is theirs, and sacred.  I just ask the world to grant me mine as well.

 

What is the truth… in memoir? 6: Allegiance to one’s own truth rather than that of others

06 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Sara Mansfield Taber in Born Under an Assumed Name, Memoir Writing, On Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

What is the truth...in memoir?

Another problem in all this truth-seeking while crafting a memoir:  Was this book to be my truth or that of the people I knew?  To whom did I owe allegiance?  Unlike in my work as a literary journalist or scholar, where my primary aim was to convey others’ truth, (I have written books about French bakers and Argentine shepherds, and academic papers about Mexican immigrants and Indian women,) here the truth conveyed could only be my own.  I didn’t have access, nor did I seek access, to the experiences of my past companions.  That was not the mission of my memoir.  In fact, at a certain point in the writing, I needed to avoid others’ memories and perspectives altogether, so as to preserve my own recollections, and not muddy the one truth I was after: my own, my own story.  But is that the truth, then?  You see how fast you can slip into a whirlpool, with piranhas drawing near.

Events

Saturday May 19 - The Gaithersburg Book Festival Sara Mansfield Taber Speaking at 3:20 PM City Hall Grounds, Gaithersburg

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 242 other followers

More Links for Sara!

Listen to Sara Taber's Interview on The Diane Rehm Show, March 13, 2012!

Connect with me on my Author Facebook Page: Sara Mansfield Taber

Visit my website www.SaraTaber.com.

Follow my updates on Twitter @SaraMTaber

Support our local bookstores.

Recent Posts

  • How to Publish Your Memoir
  • Global Nomads and TCKS- 26: Reconciliation
  • Global Nomads and TCKS- 25: Everywhere is a reminder of somewhere else
  • Global Nomads and TCKS- 24: Finding home
  • Global Nomads and TCKS- 23: Looking for lost pasts, lost selves…

Archives

  • October 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • August 2010

Categories

  • Aging
  • Book/Blog Recommendations
  • Born Under an Assumed Name
  • Cold War
  • Family and the CIA
  • Global Nomads
  • Global Nomads and TCKs
  • Life
  • Life Abroad
  • Memoir Writing
  • Of Many Lands
  • On Culture
  • On Writing
  • Opinion
  • Spies
  • Thoughts and Miscellany
  • Travels
  • Uncategorized
  • Women's Lives

Aciman Aging alec leamas Alice Kaplan Andre Aciman Colin Firth Czesaw Milosz Czeslaw Milosz Edward Said Flannery O'Connor Henry James Lee Smollen Life Notes Phillip Ball Publishing richard burton Roger Penrose The Memoir Writing Process What is the truth...in memoir? Who am I to...write a memoir? Why Write a Memoir? Women's Lives Writing

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com
© 2012 Sara Mansfield Taber. All rights reserved. Contact sara@sarataber.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy