Post 8: Nonfiction and Memoirs

If a book is said to be nonfiction, that’s exactly what it should be: all fact no fiction. Whether the book is good or not it needs to be labeled correctly, otherwise readers may be angry or upset when they find out the truth. If a book is embellished with things that are not true amongst a semi true book, it could instead be labeled a fiction book that is based on a true story.  If a memoir is filled with things that make the person’s life more exciting, traumatic, or devastating more people are likely to read the book. If an author is writing a memoir they should want people to read their story, not a partly true story that makes them seem a whole lot more interesting than they actually are. The author should be more concerned with getting the whole truth out in the world than getting an exaggerated version out there for the sole purpose of selling more copies.

I don’t think Frey had the right to add details to his memoir, I feel like if the book is published as a memoir it should tell the story as it happened. Frey only decided to make his book a memoir because he knew that if people believed it was a true story they would be more interested in reading it. I think that people like to read true stories versus fiction because it seems hard to believe that stuff that happens in memoirs actually happened to real people. In fiction, anything is believable because you can create new worlds, devastating events, unbelievable luck, and unfortunate circumstances; nothing actually has to have been experienced. I believe that that’s what makes memoirs so intriguing; the fact that people have triumphed over these hardships and carried on with their lives, and if people are adding false facts to their writing I think the whole purpose of a memoir has been breached.