Truth, Fiction, or Both: The Truth to Memoir in The Distance Between Us

Reyna's memoir is heartbreaking and heavily emotionally charged. Even with that certain questions remain about the story she has told. The concept of memoir is different than an autobiography. Jane Friedman from Writer's Digest University discusses this, "When a memoirist writes, “This happened to me,” readers should be able to trust that it did. Lying about what happened violates that trust. It’s that simple" (https://www.writersdigest.com/craft-technique/when-is-lying-in-memoir-acceptable-3-key-issues). However, Jane also explains that memoirs are more complicated because they provide more than just details. They rely on  memory and the writer's interpretation of those memories.

Jane further elaborates that there are three claims that are made in relation to memoir in the following:

1. A Literary Work Is Always Fiction

Why It’s True
Real life is always messier than literature. It doesn’t have a tidy, narrative arc, other people are more complicated or unknowable than we depict them on the page, and many things that happen aren’t worth telling or don’t add to the point of our tale.

Like fiction writers, we craft memoir through selecting, organizing, structuring and shaping bits and pieces from a giant pile of options. We create a meaningful through-line based on our own interpretation of events, and promote our own point of view. We create accurate but not verbatim dialogue. Some memoirists even create composite characters, change names or locations, or compress multiple incidents into one—all to create a more compelling story (and sometimes to protect others’ privacy or avoid getting sued).

In this sense, memoir does “fictionalize” life.

Why It’s Not
This claim confuses two kinds of invention: literary invention, and the invention of facts.

Memoirs should contain only things that really happened and details that pass the fact test. I was never captured by the Taliban—so that claim doesn’t go in my pile.

In other words, inventing a story from raw data is not the same as inventing the data.

And when we’ve significantly altered things—like compressing timelines or creating composite characters, we have an obligation to let readers know.

2. Memory Can’t Be Trusted, So Memoir Is Never True

Why It’s True
Memory works in mysterious ways. It deletes key details, shuffles timelines, rearranges or fudges the facts. It can dim or grow bolder with time.

Different people may recall the same event in wildly different ways.

Memory doesn’t store an exact replica of experience. It interprets and fabulates.

So a genre that relies on memory is going to tell some whoppers. And so of course, our story will be skewed by the way that memory works. But faulty memory is not the same as lying.

Why It’s Not
We don’t know when memory is making things up. Unless we’re pathological liars, we know when we consciously choose to add falsehoods to our story. We know when we’re making memories up.

So as memoirists, we should accurately recount the story as we remember it, even if memory itself may be wrong.

3. But It’s Emotionally True, So Who Really Cares?

Why It’s True
When her tale of escaping from the Warsaw ghetto and living among wolves was exposed as a lie, writer Misha Defonseca admitted she’d made it all up, but then defended herself: “The story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality.” Her fable embodied her emotional experience of the war and so it felt true. James Frey offered a similar defense: his exaggerations and lies created an emotionally, if not literally, true story.

Why It’s Not
Fact and emotional truth are not mutually exclusive. A skillful artist can write an emotionally true story from verifiable fact.

Final Thoughts
Memoirists enter into an agreement with readers: I will tell you an emotionally true story in a skillful way. I will make it worth your while. And while my memory is imperfect, I haven’t invented memories. I haven’t invented facts. If I compress timelines, combine characters or conflate events, I will tell you. The other people in my book would tell the story differently; this is my own, true version.

I began to wonder about certain details in Reyna's story as I processed it. I think my reaction to what she experienced as a small child was so vehement that I wanted to console myself by trying to see if it could all be real. I thought maybe this was an instance when Reyna might have taken literary license to increase the impact of her story. I thought, "Reyna's story is absolutely emotional; so, why quibble over the details," but, I still had to know. After all the research I completed of the time, the economy, the type of diseases possible, and everything else I came to the conclusion that Reyna's story even if not absolutely true for her was true for many, many other children which means there is no reason to question what happened.

The blog at:

https://www.storiestotellbooks.com/blog/what-makes-a-memoir-great.html

discuss more about memoir, "Writing a great memoir depends on telling your story in a way that gives readers an insight into their own lives and the human condition."

Reyna tells us so much about our own human condition with her story. We are much the better for her story if only we act once we have read.