Truth in Memoir
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University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2013 Truth in memoir Caroline van de Pol University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. 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Truth in Memoir Caroline van de Pol A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Wollongong 2013 ! II! ! Contents Abstract V Acknowledgements VI THESIS 1 Introduction 3 1 Tensions in Truth 13 Narrative strategies 16 Where’s the line? 19 Exploring fiction 24 2 Turning Life into Art 27 Fictionalising real people 30 Courage and morality 33 Invented or imagined 39 3 Memory as the Editor 41 Truth and facts 42 A new framework 45 Postmemory 47 4 About Face 53 The somersault 54 Relaxing the rules 57 Dallas 3047 58 Conclusion 65 References 71 WAYS TO FLY 77 Prologue 79 The 1960s 81 The 1970s 145 The 1980s 199 Epilogue 259 ! ! ! III ! ! IV! ! Abstract This creative work and accompanying thesis explores ideas, theory and practice associated with the key themes of truth in fiction and fiction in nonfiction, while asserting the form the writing takes, the geography of genre, may constantly be in motion. There are just as many ways to write a book, as there are ways to fly. You can leap from a high diving board, or you can start at the bottom of the ladder and slowly climb before you soar. Truth in Memoir, the thesis, explores the tensions in truth when turning real life into art. It discusses the challenges I faced in constructing a story from a life, the desire to tell an engaging story that remains loyal to the ‘truth’. The thesis also addresses research questions about how accurately fiction or memoir might capture the truth of a story, the emotional elements that offer insights into real lives. Chapters on memory, trauma and place attempt to build a bridge between truth and the imagined, asserting that both have an essential function in both fiction and nonfiction, which is often difficult to categorise. Ways to Fly is a hybrid memoir as novel. It’s both fiction and nonfiction, blending truth and facts, imagination and invention to create a work that might also be considered creative nonfiction. It’s a true story with real people and real places, a story of a big Catholic family in a fledgling suburb in the north of Melbourne. It’s about the divide of disability and disadvantage in society. This thesis discusses and illustrates the theoretical frameworks and practice of writing memoir and fiction while closely examining my own writing process as I moved between biography, fiction and memoir, all the while striving for authenticity and artful representation of my story. This writing and rewriting, the thesis suggests, was not only about the aesthetics of the material but the editing process and my desire not only for truth telling but also respect for the narrative and the reader. ! V Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Catherine Cole, for her constant support and faithful guidance, as well as her intelligence and insights into creative ways to steer both the thesis and the memoir forward. Thank you – and the University of Wollongong – for making the experience so challenging and satisfying. Without the generosity of my friends Maurice and Nick Gleeson in sharing stories with me, and without the encouragement of my brothers, Paul, Tom, Andrew, Seamus, John and Matthew, I would have struggled. I am grateful to you all. My colleagues at RMIT University have assisted me in many ways, reading sections of my PhD submission and providing feedback, as well as opportunities to present and discuss my work. I am indebted to contributions and other support from those in the School of Media and Communication, especially Olivia Guntarik, Mandy Oakham, Francesca Rendle-Short, David Carlin, Amy Saunders and Jenny Robinson. At critical editing and formatting stages I was fortunate to have the guidance of Helen Williams and Vicki Hatton, and right from the earliest drafts of the manuscript, I had unflinching support from close relatives and friends, Patti Green, Evelyn Tsitas, Margaret Simpson, Julie Sullivan, Jo Maxwell and Janine Davis. There were many others who ran this marathon with me but none more so than my husband Jon who, as always, provided the comic perspective, and my three sons, James, William and Daniel who make all kinds of allowances for their often distracted mother. I am blessed to have you all. VI ! ! THESIS ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 ! ! 2 ! ! Introduction To tell the truth we have to trap the appearances with quotation marks. We are not what we are said to be. – Helene Cixous (Cixous 1994) If writing a life story is fraught with danger, then fictionalising it may be a way forward, especially when that story has elements of trauma, repressed and ignored until the writing begins. How can I know what I will write until I write it? It’s a question I have grappled with throughout the writing of both my creative work and thesis. Australian novelist Eleanor Dark wrote of a similar challenge in knowing and writing: ‘How can you know until you write it down? How can you write it down until you know?’ (Brooks, B & Clark 1998, p. 6) In the creative work that accompanies this thesis, my writing began as biography, however as I began to uncover memories, events and incidental images I found the writing became too difficult. In a sense I avoided the difficult material. ‘Something’s missing’ was a common response to my narrative about the everyday life of ordinary people in a working class suburb of Melbourne. ‘I’ was deliberately missing from the text. French writer and theorist Helene Cixous argues true autobiography does not exist as there is no such thing as a ‘Pure I, identical to I-self’. In her preface to The Helene Cixous Reader, she claims that ‘I is always in difference’ (Cixous 1994, p. xviii). Cixous is not alone in this view. Gertrude Stein, in discussing her writing and the way in which identity is blurred, suggests: ‘You are of course never yourself’ (Smith & Watson 2001, p. 15). Other theorists argue similarly, suggesting that autobiographical truth can never be fixed. In Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, authors Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson propose that ‘how people remember, what they remember and who does the remembering are historically specific’ (Smith & ! 3 INTRODUCTION ! Watson 2001, p. 17). I would add to this that the remembering is also both culturally specific and ever-changing, so that memories/stories of mine at fifteen, then the oldest girl in a family of ten growing up in a place described as poor and deprived (Lemon 1982), are different from the writing I do as an academic and a middle aged, middle class writer. This PhD submission offers a creative, as well as a theoretical, exploration of the boundaries between a ‘true’ memoir and a fictionalised one. The research thesis examines narrative, memory and truth. My creative work, Ways to Fly, is concerned with growing up in Broadmeadows where, at the outset, I aimed to tell a story of a working class community with a focus beyond my own experiences. However, what emerged in the writing process was a hybrid memoir that blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction and challenged categorisation. This tension is not new. There are precedents that combine approaches and processes, and mix memoir with novel, novel with memoir. Examples include works such as Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, Helen Garner’s The Spare Room. Did these writers struggle as I did with the most appropriate form for their stories? Did they move between fiction and nonfiction restlessly until the true voice of the piece was clear? In answering these questions and others raised in this introduction and discussed throughout the thesis, I have used textual analysis as a methodology, most notably a deconstruction of novels and memoirs closely related to my work and methods, such as those by Australian contemporary authors Helen Garner, Kate Grenville and Tim Winton as well as Irish writer Frank McCourt and American writers of earlier decades including Mary McCarthy and Carson McCullers.