For both the interested reader of memoir and the writer wrestling with the craft, The Memoir and the Memoirist provides guidance and insight into the many facets of this provocative and popular art form.Ī critical handbook for understanding this vital literary form. Larson also opens up his own writing and that of his students to demonstrate the hidden mechanics of the writing process. It explores the craft and purpose of personal narrative by looking in detail at more than a dozen examples by writers such as Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Eggers, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Mark Doty, Nuala OâFaolain, Rick Bragg, and Joseph Lelyveld to show what they reveal about themselves. The Memoir and the Memoirist touches on the nuances of memory, of finding and telling the truth, and of disclosing oneâs deepest self. Larson guides the reader from the autobiography and the personal essay to the memoir-a genre focused on a particularly emotional relationship in the authorâs past, an intimate story concerned more with who is remembering, and why, than with what is remembered.

In The Memoir and the Memoirist, critic and memoirist Thomas Larson explores the craft and purpose of writing this new form. Memoir and personal narrative urge writers to face the intimacies of the self and ask what is true. Writing programs challenge authors to disclose themselves in personal narrative.

Writers embrace the memoir and readers devour it, propelling many memoirs by relative unknowns to the top of the best-seller list. The memoir is the most popular and expressive literary form of our time. By asking questions about authenticity, cultural appropriation, and commodification, Thrill of the Chaste also considers Amish fiction's effects on Amish and non-Amish audiences alike. She discusses strategies that literary agents and booksellers use to drive the genre's popularity. Valerie Weaver-Zercher combines research and interviews with devoted readers, publishers, and authors to produce a lively and provocative examination of the Amish romance novel. Thrill of the Chaste is the first book to analyze this growing trend in romance fiction and to place it into the context of contemporary literature, religion, and popular culture. Romance novels with Amish protagonists, such as the best-selling trailblazer The Shunning by Beverly Lewis, are becoming increasingly popular with a largely evangelical female audience.

They hover innocently above sun-drenched pastures or rustic country lanes, often with a horse-drawn buggy in the background'or the occasional brawny stranger. Browse the inspirational fiction section of your local bookstore, and you will likely find cover after cover depicting virtuous young women cloaked in modest dresses and wearing a pensive or playful expression.

Growing up amish a memoir