This article delves into the raw idea of what a memoir is, and if it could ever possibly contain all truth and no fiction. As the author points out with the help of Freud and other authors, a memoir is completely subjective to the writer's recollection of their memories. If someone recalls a moment of their past in a certain way that they believe to be true, that doesn't necessarily mean that another person involved in their story remembers it the same way. Chances are, they probably don't. Once something has happened, unless it is caught from all angles on tape, and even then, the only remaining evidence of the complete truth of the event is in the minds of those who witnessed it. And as people interpret events differently, their memories in turn are stored that way. So what is true to one person may not seem so true to the other.
And although Mendelsohn points out this subjectivity, we as readers continue to get very angry and offended when someone seems to be lying in their memoir. But the truth is, as Freud pointed out, that if a person were to try to write a completely objective memoir with no exaggeration or skimming over unpleasantries.
Mendelsohn goes on to critique the memoir's history, in a pleasantly sarcastic way.
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