Is There Such a Genre as "Fictional Memoir?"

I like the idea, even if I'm not sure what it's called. Speculative memoir?

An unauthorized autobiography?

Hmm... I recall a book a while back (Half-Broke Horses, IIRC), that was billed as a "true-life novel": while it somewhat biographical in that it was based on true events and a real person, enough details were filled in by the writer that they didn't feel it qualified as straight nonfiction. So they sort of split the difference.

I wonder if you could pitch a "memoir novel" in a similar way...

ETA - More recently, I read Ann Stewart's Girl Waits With Gun, based on the actual people and events surrounding the first woman deputy sheriff, Constance Kopp, in 1914 New Jersey. It's sold as a novel because one subplot was fabricated, though based on things that actually happened, and because Stewart by necessity made up details of conversations and personalities and such that weren't preserved by history. Good book, incidentally, if you're looking for a period crime novel... Anyway, if you wanted to push yourself a little further, you might consider making your story into a novel, albeit one with strong ties to reality.

This makes me think about the volumes published under the title My Struggle by the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard. He uses the real names of himself, his wife and children and real incidents from his family's life and his own past but uses fictional techniques and clearly has invented detail in some recalled incidents from the past (who remembers what they ate for breakfast 18 years ago?). But it is the 'memoir' aspect that makes the books so compulsively readable for me. Knausgaard writes about so much daily ordinary life mixed up with shameful adolescent behaviour, his father's alcoholism, being sexually rejected, his chaotic drinking, his life as a father of young children -- and it is his own life, even if he has worked it up as a fictional or literary recreation in hindsight.

Life writing these days is such an interesting field to explore (thinking too of Elana Ferrante's pseudonymous 'novels' that also give the feeling of eavesdropping on a real life). Comanche, your idea of writing back from the future into your own life sounds exciting. 'Fictional memoir' is probably as close a name as you can get, but some might argue that if it is fictional in part, fiction is what it should be called.

Actually, quite a number of novels take the form of fictional memoirs. One of the most obvious examples is To Kill a Mockingbird. Whether it constitutes a "genre" is a matter of definition of that word, but the form of fictional narrative isn't at all unusual.

caw

blacbird said:

Actually, quite a number of novels take the form of fictional memoirs. One of the most obvious examples is To Kill a Mockingbird. Whether it constitutes a "genre" is a matter of definition of that word, but the form of fictional narrative isn't at all unusual.

caw

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That's what I was thinking. Jane Eyre was the first such novel to spring to mind. Then I thought of the Hetty Feather series by Jacqueline Wilson (UK children's author, not sure how well known she is across the pond) though I can't remember if that's written in first person or not. In any case, I'd say ficticious memoir/autobiography type story is already a well established kind of story.

Unless you are famous, I'd say that it's fiction. The reader doesn't know you. They will simply appreciate it as a story.

I'm starting a similar project (literally yesterday) with an historical novel loosely based on my family tree. It will show how several generations of a mining family change as the world around them changes from the early days of the industrial revolution through to the turbulent times of Brexit.

I know it's based on my family tree, but the rest of the world doesn't. As far as they are concerned, it's a story.

Hi
I don't understand the idea . Lots of writers use their real life in fiction . One of Stephen Kings reoccurring characters is an alcoholic writer ,living in Maine , often suffering from writers block . There's lots of fiction presented as a biography , and even be based on actual events . T E Lawrence's biography, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is a masterpieces of writing , but it is tainted by the knowledge that Lawrence embellished the truth . A biographic fiction, could only be classified as fiction.

Comanche said:

Therefore, I can't really sell it as a memoir - and its not truly fiction. How do I market this mixed breed?

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As an autobiographical novel. Knausgaard's My Struggle, while it's clearly autobiographical, is marketed as a novel because a lot of the details are invented. Same goes for Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

This isn't uncommon. I've just heard it referred to as autobiographical fiction for the most part.

Capote called it a Non-Fiction Novel when he did In Cold Blood.

Might want to call it a bildungsroman https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bildungsroman

My Brilliant Friend (the whole series of Ferrante's novels, in fact) are a great example.

Auntie Mame (the original book) was presented as a memoir by author Patrick Dennis.

I don't know that I've ever encountered a speculative autobiography, but the idea is really compelling. On the categorisation front, my (admittedly useless) intuition would lean heavily towards just branding it as fiction, but making explicitly sure that the concept gets across.

Didn't James Frey backpedal on A Million Little Pieces to say it was a fictionalized autobiography? Anyone remember that Oprah-related scandal?

DancingMaenid said:

This isn't uncommon. I've just heard it referred to as autobiographical fiction for the most part.

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A novel doesn't have to be autobiographical to take the form of a memoir. Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger, would be a good example of a non-autobiographical fictional memoir. Nor do all autobiographical novels take the form of memoir.

caw

I wouldn't call it a Bildungsroman unless the focus is specifically on the spiritual/moral/philosophical maturation of your main character.

This kind of writing was pretty popular during the Modernist era. Henry Miller and Herman Hesse come to mind. I've also heard Sylvia Plath and Anais Nin thrown in this category. The best label for it I can think of is Semi-Autobiographical Fiction.

Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, which was basically a fictional biography.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and the sequel, The Last American Vampire, were both essentially fake-biographies and pseudo-historical accounts. The Sherlock Holmes stories could be considered fictional memoirs.

My current WIP, which I just began, is based on the life and times of ol' stormie here. But enhanced quite a bit for flavor.

NateSean said:

Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, which was basically a fictional biography.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and the sequel, The Last American Vampire, were both essentially fake-biographies and pseudo-historical accounts. The Sherlock Holmes stories could be considered fictional memoirs.

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Yes, and clearly not autobiographical. It's an error to think that all "fictional memoirs" represent autobiography.

caw

The work that I'll be diving into in the next few months is a science fiction memoir on one of my characters -- I'm making sure that who reads it will know it's a fiction instead of being based on fact; I'm not rich, famous, or that well known out there so it would be important for people to know that they're reading a story instead of something that'll bore the socks from their feet (my life's not that interesting, though some might get a laugh or do a sniffle or two at some aspects of it).

blacbird said:

Yes, and clearly not autobiographical. It's an error to think that all "fictional memoirs" represent autobiography.

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If you're referring to Virginia Woolf, I said biography and not autobiography. But still fictional.

I didn't think anything. The thread is asking about fictional memoirs, I presented an example of a fictional memoir.

Where's the confusion?

No confusion. I was actually referring to the mention of autobiography by a couple of other posters, and trying to emphasize that autobiography is not essential to the idea of fictional biography. Your examples are directly on point.

caw