Voice grows from the nature of a writer’s talent, which stems from innate character. Just as a memoirist’s nature bestows her magic powers on the page, we also wind up seeing how selfish or mean-spirited or divisive she is or was. We don’t see events objectively; we perceive them through ourselves. And we remember through a filter of both who we are now and who we once were.
So the best voices include a writer’s insides. Watching her mind feel around to concoct or figure out events, you never lose sight of the ego’s shape, its blind spots, dislikes, wants. The books I reread don’t seek to record as film does – a visual medium tethered to surface action (these days, in popular film, the flashier the better); nor as a history does – by weighing and measuring various sources and crafting a balanced perspective.
To tell the truth, such a memoirist can’t help but show at each bump in the road how her perceptual filter is distorting what’s being taken in. In other words, she questions her own perceptions as part of the writing process. The deeper – and, ergo, more plausible-sounding – writer inquires.
– Mary Karr – “The Art of Memoir”
