celebrating Patricia Hampl and other fine memoirists in HANDLING THE TRUTH

In returning the proof pages of Handling the Truth to Gotham yesterday, I relinquished all further control over the story.  No more changes.  No allowable regrets.  The book will soon be set in stone and released next August.

One of my greatest joys, in writing Handling the Truth, was the chance it gave me to celebrate the many memoirs—true memoirs, not autobiographies—that have inspired me throughout the years.  Natalie Kusz is there—the author of the first memoir I ever read.  C.K. Williams.  Marie Arana.  Mary Karr.  Anthony Shadid.  bell hooks.  Katrina Kenison.  Darin Strauss.  Dani Shapiro.  Rahna Reiko Rizzuto.  Buzz Bissinger.  Colleen Mondor.  Sy Montgomery.  Chris Offutt.  Elizabeth McCracken.  Lucy Grealy.  So many others. 

But no book about the making of memoir would ever be complete without a celebration of Patricia Hampl, who has done so much to shape the form.  Here, above, is a glimpsed moment.