Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
If, as Murdock says, we use memory to create our identities, then at last there's an explanation for why members of a single family will remember in radically different ways an event that affected them all. For just as memory shapes identity, says Murdock, identity, once formed, shapes how we remember things: "If the image of the event we have participated in does not match the image of the self we have carefully constructed, then we rarely remember the facts of the event at all." Yet according to the author, each memory, no matter how discrete, has a structure similar to that of myth; beneath each memory is a psychological archetype, such as that of the journey. So while it's possible for a memoir to be narcissistic, Murdock claims, most of them transcend petty egotism; a book like Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes "stirs our collective memory and inspires our collective compassion." In trying to describe the writer's relation to his or her unconscious, Murdock counters the shadowiness of her subject by referring to such well-known memoirists as McCourt, John Bayley, Isabel Allende, Mary Karr and J.M. Coetzee, as well as lesser-known authors. Part One of this study outlines Murdock's general ideas about memory and identity interspersed with an often painful-to-read account of the author's relationship with an angry, controlling mother. Part Two is essentially a textbook, complete with exercises designed for those interested in organizing their experiences as best they can and, given memory's unreliability, making as much sense as possible of them. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This provocative and insightful work explores the role of imagination in the memoir-writing process and suggests various ways to write memoir. As a psychologist, Murdock (Pacifica Graduate Inst.) uses a broad approach to explore the need to write memoirs and the insignificance of an event's factual details. Taking a feminist approach and distinguishing between male and female biographical writing methods, she focuses on the meaning behind the memories (real or not) and links it to an underlining pattern of life. In the first half of the book, she employs her own memories and other memoirs to demonstrate certain writing techniques, while in the second half she provides step-by-step instructions for novice writers of memoir. She also illustrates the faultiness of memory with some very personal stories and considers how the act of remembering may actually alter what is remembered. While the audience is the general public, Murdock's insights into biographical and autobiographical writing make this book appropriate for academic and all public libraries.-Paolina Taglienti, New York Acad. of Medicine (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
