By Annette Fix
Simply stated: When you write a memoir, you are recording history. History as experienced by a single human. History that you are living and documenting right now.
The dusty textbooks used in schools relay history, citing the names, dates, and places of significant events, and the major public, social, political, and religious figures considered noteworthy. While all those facts and figures are preserved for posterity, where are the stories from the people who lived through those historical events?
Without the individual stories of people who were there, future generations will be robbed of the humanity beneath the history.
The galvanizing election of the first African American president of the United States, the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Holocaust—these events and countless others—both large and small—are pieces of human history that shouldn’t be reduced to facts and figures.
Which is more compelling and leaves you with a deeper understanding of history: the chapter about WWII in your old high-school textbook or The Diary of Anne Frank? At their core, all memoirs have historical elements woven through the story. There is no way to write a memoir can exist without capturing a moment in history. A memoir is documentation—a narrative record of how a single person functioning within society thinks, behaves, and lives at this very moment in time.
Through his personal story in Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt tells a tale that gives great insight into the Irish socio-economic struggles. His experience is not unlike the experiences of many others at that place and time. McCourt’s story has relevance today in this economic climate. A memoir written by someone affected by the current lending crisis or the stock market crash could provide the human insight behind the facts and figures that will eventually be recorded in history textbooks.
The same can be said about the gender oppression in Middle Eastern culture explored in Reading Lolita in Tehran. And the political debate surrounding right-to-life issues in Two Weeks of Life. History repeats itself and often only the setting, characters, and details change.
What is your story has no connection to anything historical?
Maybe your story is not tied directly to any event that will ever make your name appear in a textbook; that doesn’t mean your experience is less valuable. Your daily trials, concerns, and experiences deserve to be recorded to paint an authentic picture of life at this very moment, at this exact place in the world. What may not seem like history to you now could end up being a study in social anthropology in the future, so don’t be too quick to decide your story is insignificant on a historical level.
As an example, when I began writing my book, The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir, I was working through a devastating relationship break-up that occurred exactly 43 days after the terrorist attack on The World Trade Center—two seemingly unrelated incidents. It wasn’t until a year later that I discovered studies were conducted about the phenomenon. Because Americans were shaken to the core by an attack carried out on U.S. soil, many of them began to question what and who in their lives were most important. People made significant life choices, following the mantra: “life is too short.” Though the specifics of my story are unique to my life, and my voice and the execution of my memoir is intentionally lighter in tone than you would expect, the catalyst for my story is both historical and universal.
Take a look at your life. Think on a micro level—what experience in your life mirrors history on a universal/macro level? What is your personal story connection to history?Annette Fix is a freelance editor, a publishing industry and single parenting speaker, Senior Editor of WOW! Women On Writing, and the author of The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir.
Visit her writing blog at Annette’s Paper Trail. She enjoys hearing from her readers and other writers. You can email her directly at annette[at]annettefix[dot]com.
For the length of her blog tour, Annette will be giving away free digital copies of her memoir. If you’d like a copy, send an email to promo[at]thebreak-updiet[dot]com, please put “The Urban Muse” in the subject line.
You can purchase copies of The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir online and from any independent or chain bookstore.