Memoirable Truth

Augusten Burroughs has been slayed in the December issue of Vanity Fair. Buzz Bissinger, the author of the article "Ruthless with Scissors," takes Burroughs' truth tactics to task, interviewing the real-life Finch family, which is at the center of Burroughs' off-the-charts book Running With Scissors.

In it the family details numerous trips to the hospital in reaction to the alleged fabrications in the book. One family member even quit his job as a police officer out of fear he'd be identified as the little boy who took a dump under the piano. I can empathize with the people. They feel their truth was grossly distorted in order to sell books. The past they had come to know and share was, in their eyes, dragged through the odor and chaos of their messy house. That could be potentially embarrassing. Sometimes the truth is.

I was eager to read the article when I first heard about it last month. Memoirists have been under the radar of voracious readers and reticent publishers for a year now, at least publicly, and so it is with this knowledge that I write my book. I was hoping this article would shed some light on the effects on others of writing one's own story. Wait, what was that? One's own story.

Truth can be a bitch and perception can be worse if it doesn't mesh with your own. My perception of the color of a sweater can differ from the person standing next to me. That has actually happened.

"It's blue."

"Are you blind? It's purple."

"No, it's totally blue."

Now throw memory into that and the color goes through all different iterations. Put the sweater with a particular outfit and it may very well become a different color. Maybe even in a different color family. Memory dictates experience, and I know that some of my memories differ from what others experience. Then I say go write your own book. My book about my life will have my own perception of my own memory throughout. Period. It's unfortunate if authors go so far as to totally make shit up, such as, say, being in a foster home for eleven months and abused along with the ten other children versus being in it for only a week by myself. The former is certainly more interesting, but it would also be lying.

My roommate and I have discussed this many times, as she tells me to make up names and situations. The feelings are there; the perceptions are there. Memory is "memory" for a reason. By its nature it is forgotten and relived in a different way depending on one's state of mind. Recalling a rainy day five years ago will evoke a feeling that might not have been shared with the person you shared the rain with. A situation might have occurred twenty-five years ago, the memory of which will have emotion and even color attached to it, and a writer will describe all of it. If the writer claims it's true, then it is true to him or her.

To the real-life Finches I say go write your own book. Declare a "memwar." Or better yet, sue when the book comes out in 2002. Not in the summer of 2005.

I have some fuzzy memories. That's when I give my mom a call and we talk a little and I force her to relive things that I have no knowledge of. Even then, I won't claim those memories as my own. I will say that my mom told me about it. Or I will describe my uncertainty about the memory, paying closer attention to the feelings surrounding it. If it's in the final draft then it is necessary to the overall narrative and, thus, significant to me as a writer writing about my life.