http://blog.booklistonline.com/2007/05/04/at-last-a-solution-to-the-problem-of-memoirs/ Behind the Book Reviews--The Official Blog of Booklist Online Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:06:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 http://blog.booklistonline.com/2007/05/04/at-last-a-solution-to-the-problem-of-memoirs/#comment-105451 Book Blog - Likely Stories, by Keir Graff - Booklist Online » 2008 » March » 04 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:30:16 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/2007/05/04/at-last-a-solution-to-the-problem-of-memoirs/#comment-105451 [...] Seriously, although a number of people have proposed solutions to the problem of memoirs, how many more faked and flawed memoirs will have to be exposed before publishers come to some consensus about how the category is to be treated? [...] […] Seriously, although a number of people have proposed solutions to the problem of memoirs, how many more faked and flawed memoirs will have to be exposed before publishers come to some consensus about how the category is to be treated? […]

]]> http://blog.booklistonline.com/2007/05/04/at-last-a-solution-to-the-problem-of-memoirs/#comment-57713 Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Good Writing? Got to Be Fiction Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:46:52 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/2007/05/04/at-last-a-solution-to-the-problem-of-memoirs/#comment-57713 [...] Last week, Publishers Weekly (”Separating Fact and Fiction in the U.S., Europe,” by Rüdiger Wischenbart) examined the European solution to the problem of memoirs: put them in the fiction section. At the risk of being accused yet again of pandering to Europe, I have to say that this is starting to make sense to me. Not least because it allows us to enjoy some wonderfully Gallic explanations: Nobody had any doubt about the veracity of Grass’s account—that is, Peeling the Onion was clearly not another Grass novel, despite his occasional and seemingly willful blurring of fact and fiction. Yet when the book instantly got on the bestseller list, it was listed as “fiction,” in accord with the general practice in most of Europe. But why is that the case? In France, it is “the literary character and the novelistic dimension which define a work as ‘fiction,’” explained Fabrice Piault, deputy editor-in-chief of the book trade magazine Livres Hebdo. [...] […] Last week, Publishers Weekly (”Separating Fact and Fiction in the U.S., Europe,” by Rüdiger Wischenbart) examined the European solution to the problem of memoirs: put them in the fiction section. At the risk of being accused yet again of pandering to Europe, I have to say that this is starting to make sense to me. Not least because it allows us to enjoy some wonderfully Gallic explanations: Nobody had any doubt about the veracity of Grass’s account—that is, Peeling the Onion was clearly not another Grass novel, despite his occasional and seemingly willful blurring of fact and fiction. Yet when the book instantly got on the bestseller list, it was listed as “fiction,” in accord with the general practice in most of Europe. But why is that the case? In France, it is “the literary character and the novelistic dimension which define a work as ‘fiction,’” explained Fabrice Piault, deputy editor-in-chief of the book trade magazine Livres Hebdo. […]

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