I’m currently reading my grandma’s memoirs. I’d really like to see them published, there are some really dramatic stories in there.
But I think it’s too much work for my aunts. They don’t want to publish them as they are without censoring names.
My great uncle did. He survived North Africa, Sicily, and Omaha Beach. So he had some things to say.
People don’t read them but I think that’s not usually the point. The people I know who have written them usually end up with boxes in their garage that they eventually give at to friends and family.
It’s still a nice accomplishment and a good personal growth thing.
My sister wrote one and had a publishing deal for one (as a prize for winning an essay contest), but she couldn’t prove everything. The memoir was about her dealing with some deaths and getting sober, so the unverifiable bits were most of the story. This was right after the James Frey scandal, so the publishing company bought her out instead of trying to pare it down or chase down a bunch of non-recovering addicts to confirm years old details.
How important is “proof”?
Like how do I “prove” my story?
Do they just get a private investigator to investigate me?
How about like sibling abuse? How am I supposed to prove that? Like it happens at home and there are no witnesses besides… well us… it’s a “he said she said” situation.
What about like events in another country that was born in and lived in for a bit of my early childhood.
Like…
Damn I feel like I’m gonna have to self-publish it and them nobody is gonna believe me…
Oh well…
I guess I’ll just have to feel like many of those victims that nobody ever believes…
