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Larson, Thomas. The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative. Athens, OH: Swallow/Ohio UP, 2007. 211 pp. ISBN- 978-0-804-01101-3, $16.95.
While it can easily be argued that discussions of memoirs and/or autobiographies have been done and even overdone, Thomas Larson's contribution is well worth reading. He deftly handles his own roles of writer/memoirist/ writing coach/critic as he argues for a distinction between autobiography and memoir, prioritizing the latter, which has become a form of choice for many contemporary writers seeking "a particular life experience to focus on" (15).
Larson writes as practitioner, leader of memoir-writing courses, and critic. His readings are exceptionally perceptive and succinct, the product of someone who has looked deep within himself as well as carefully dug beneath the surface of the texts he examines. In writing on James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son," Larson remarks that Baldwin's "narrative writing about his family reveals the universal stickiness of our parents' lives: whatever has angered and disillusioned them often rears up as unresolved themes in their children....