Lauren Slater crafts diligent, depictive metaphors in narrative, and I hate her writing, simultaneously.
Should there be lying in memoir? In her book, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2000), Slater crafts lies from epilepsy to nunneries to doctor visits and proposed peer reviewed theses to AA meetings. However, within these lies, she allows us to question the bigger “Truths” to these narratives.
My Love-Hate Relationship to Metaphorical Memoir
Her visit to a nunnery can be interpreted as a temporary displacement into foster care. The location does not always need to matter. Though, the causes and effects are the same and equal this “Truth” to her relationship with her family, especially her mother. Her relationship with her mother is rather rocky which leads to a downward spiral of mental illnesses. The narrative heavily implies her epilepsy is false in order to symbolize this relationship. Despite Slater’s knowledge and research on epilepsy factoring into the storyline, I still felt that the implication was rather inappropriate. The lying made sense to her possible background with Munchausen’s, but I had a hard time deciphering what was true versus “True” and why that should be something else.
In other instances, the internal monologues felt arrogant, sometimes, and off-putting. There is a section on how she had pled for her publishers to market this book. I am still puzzling out these reasonings. Another section included sexual assault by her, much older, mentor. While this occurrence is plausible in industries, such as the writing community, I was initially caught off guard whether or not the event was true. Given that our society often victim blames people in Slater’s shoes, I thought that this memoir about lying could contribute to such attitudes. Though, I have come to love that she expresses such social commentaries, that are “True,” behind imaginative metaphors and imagery.
What do you think? Give it a chance, and you may debate lying in memoir for weeks like my creative non-fiction workshop had done.
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Visiting Author: Sheila Squillante
