Impostures: Subjectivity, Memory, and Untruth in the Contemporary Memoir
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Impostures: Subjectivity, Memory, and Untruth in the Contemporary Memoir by Miriam Hannah Novick A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Miriam Hannah Novick, 2015 Impostures: Subjectivity, Memory, and Untruth in the Contemporary Memoir Miriam Hannah Novick Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2015 Abstract The memoir boom of the last two decades has seen record numbers of writers, readers, and critics engaging with forms of life narrative. At the same time, we have witnessed several cases of imposture, which Susanna Egan defines as “a serious disconnect between the author as a person alive in the world, pre-text, before any story emerges, and the written life…[Impostors] claim lives they have not lived, experiences they have not had, and identities that belong to other people” (3). I argue that impostures cannot simply be read as fiction upon their exposure: the referential claim persists in elements of the text itself, particularly in the (invented) name that authorizes the autobiographical truth claim. Thus, I frame imposture both as a genre of life narrative and in relation to the source genres it appropriates. Further, I identify the element of extratextual performance (the assumption of the imposturous persona in public venues such as readings and interviews) as crucial to contemporary imposture, connected to the critical and commercial demands of twenty-first century authorship. My first chapter revisits poststructuralism’s pronunciation of the author’s death and rereads Barthes and Foucault in conjunction with autobiographical theory to locate an author-figure produced by and within the autobiographical text, using Genette’s concept of the paratext as a threshold to position the ii author’s name as the hinge between text and world. I examine previous approaches to literary deception and suggest that a lack of attention to questions of power and difference makes them insufficient to account for imposture, particularly an imposturous claim to traumatic or marginalized experience. The next three chapters each address a set of impostures in the context of their source genres, respectively the Holocaust testimony (Wilkomirski, Defonseca, Rosenblat), the veiled bestseller (Khouri, Amina), and the abused child narrative (LeRoy). Each chapter situates its cases in relation to a contemporary theoretical discourse (traumatic memory, transnational feminisms, queer theory), emphasizing the dynamism of autobiographical discourse (even its imposturous variants) and the broader implications of my study for claims about the ethical value of life narrative and the ethical turn in literary studies as a discipline. iii Acknowledgments The process of writing a dissertation is in many ways also a process of accumulating debts, which I can only begin to repay here with expressions of thanks. I am grateful for various forms of financial support received over the course of this dissertation through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the University of Toronto Fellowship, and the English Department’s Doctoral Completion Award. The Ontario Student Assistance Program bridged the gap between university funding and average time to completion. My supervisor, Mari Ruti, and committee members Sara Salih and Daniel Heath Justice gave me the much-valued freedom to roam in as many intellectual directions as I chose (and the occasionally requisite nudges to ensure these varied trajectories led to the same destination), as well as the unwavering belief in both the significance of this project and my ability to undertake it. This belief sustained me through the moments when I could not share it, and I am deeply grateful for their confidence in me. I am without a doubt an immeasurably better writer and thinker due to their careful eyes and probing questions; any errors, flaws, or gaps necessarily remain my own. Sidonie Smith provided invaluable feedback in her capacity as external examiner at my defense, and Naomi Morgenstern was a similarly thoughtful and generous internal examiner. Denise Cruz was a source of perpetual encouragement and warmth during my final year of work. The English department administrative superheroes, Sangeeta Panjwani, Marguerite Perry, and Tanuja Persaud, offered help, humour, and occasionally hugs from start to finish. I completed a significant portion of the revisions phase of this thesis while on strike with CUPE 3902 Unit 1 as a graduate course instructor and teaching assistant in the winter of 2015. iv This experience (re)solidified for me the profound importance of marginalized voices joining together to speak truth to power and reminded me why I chose to approach this material with an eye to questions of ethics and justice. Whatever the future holds for me, whether in academia or beyond, I hope to always remember these lessons. From Girls Gone (Oscar) Wilde to the Feminist Killjoys, I have had the incomparable gift of a community of brilliant women throughout my degree. Sarah Henderson and Sundhya Walther were the first friends I made in the program, which tempts me to a belief in fate; their love and laughter have carried me through so many highs and lows and will, I hope, be with me for years to come. Viga Selak was a beloved source of fun and fat babies, while Dara Greaves’ sunny smile brightened countless days in our shared workspace, as did Laura Clarridge’s cheerful calm. There are so many more friends to name here, but I will have to believe that by now they know the depth of my gratitude to and for them. My mother, Linda Novick, is and has always been a model of courage and source of strength that words cannot capture. My brother Jason continues to teach me about compassion and entertain me with Star Trek jokes. My (not) in-laws Joan, John, and Talia Storm provided cats, Scrabble games, and a second family that I treasure. Last but never least, Elliot Storm, partner and accomplice, gave me his intellectual comradeship, unflinching integrity, and loving support beyond measure. There is no better place to stand than by his side. This dissertation is dedicated to Eric Novick, Rose Novick, and Velma Lindop, who read to me before language had meaning, and who will never read this work but have made it possible all the same. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi Introduction: The Death of the Author and the Rise of the Memoir 1 1. Theorizing Imposture 27 Defining Deception 27 Locating the Autobiographical Author 34 Can the Autobiographical Author Die? Barthes, Foucault, and Poststructuralist Approaches 47 Historicizing Deception 56 Autobiography, Imposture, Ethics 62 A Levinasian Approach to the Ethics of Imposture 70 2. Truth, Lies, and Holocaust Historiography in the Twenty-First Century: Disproven Memoirs and False Testimony 75 Historicizing Myth, Mythologizing History 75 Witness Testimony and Trauma 82 The Curious Case of Binjamin Wilkomirski 95 Genocide With Wolves 106 Screens, Surrogacy, and Scholarship 113 Romancing the Holocaust 123 3. Speaking As, Speaking For: Transnational Captivity Narratives After 9/11 130 Gender, Authority, and the New (Old) Orientalism 130 The Amina Hoax, or Lesbian Bloggers Gone Wild 140 Captivity Narratives: Power and Politics 147 Bestsellers Unveiled I: Forbidden Love/Honor Lost 154 Bestsellers Unveiled II: Forbidden Lie$ 166 Tragic Misreadings and Discursive Complicity: The Text in the World 176 4. The Autofictional JT LeRoy 187 Text as Imposture 194 Imposture as Text 205 Figuring the Child, Fighting the Future? 212 First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: Authenticity’s Cruel Attachments 221 Conclusion: On Truth and Lies in a Literary-Ethical Sense 230 Works Consulted 243 vi Introduction The Death of the Author and the Rise of the Memoir In the earliest days of 2006, as the seemingly intractable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued and George W. Bush finished the first year of his second term as president, the image of Oprah Winfrey publicly castigating an author whose bestseller she had championed only months before dominated the airwaves. The subject of Winfrey’s ire was James Frey and his ostensible memoir, A Million Little Pieces, which purported to recount in graphic (and often scatological) detail a true story of drug abuse, violent brushes with the law, incarceration, rehab, and, finally, self-willed redemption. The scandal unfolded quickly and appeared to escalate daily. Though various media outlets had questioned Frey’s claims as early as 2003, January 8, 2006 saw legal website The Smoking Gun publish a definitive exposé titled “A Million Little Lies” that effectively demolished Frey’s most titillating assertions, notably revealing that the author had spent five hours in jail rather than the 87 days he had described, and that a train accident he claimed to have witnessed took place without him. Winfrey was, at first, sympathetic to the author whose fortune she had made through the marketing juggernaut of her influential book club. On January 11, three days after The Smoking Gun exposé, Frey was interviewed on Larry King Live alongside his mother, with King airing a phone call from Winfrey defending the “essential truth” of Frey’s memoir (whatever the factual status of many of its details). Always a savvy pulse-taker of her audience, Winfrey appears to have sensed a turning tide and subsequently invited Frey to reappear on her own television program on January 26 with his publisher, Nan Talese, whose list of authors includes figures no less notable than Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, and Antonia Fraser (Talese is also the head of her own eponymous imprint under the Doubleday umbrella). In marked contrast to the adulation 1 2 Winfrey had showered upon Frey during his first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, this second visit has become almost legendary for the departure it marked from Winfrey’s usual demeanour as she spent the hour effectively nailing Frey to the wall.