TWICE-TOLD TALES

The seditious writers who unravel their own stories.

- PARUL SEHGAL

On time, as anticipated, they have returned, tunnelling into view, leaving their sooty signature. Pale in the sudden light, they fan and flutter their wings. It’s time to sing. Me, they sing. Me, again.

Cicada season has come and gone; it is another class of organism I refer to, in the throes of a parallel drama of ceremonial unwrapping and full-throated song of the self. As if compelled by biological imperatives of their own, these writers—serial memoirists, they’re sometimes called—burst forth with regularly timed tales of tribulation, of molting, of transformation. And each time they tell us they have it figured out. This time, they’ve got the real story for us, the real handle on themselves, on what it’s all about. It’s about living with the ambiguity. Accepting the light and the dark. It’s about (the serial memoirist will say, without a whisper of irony) other people.

To be fair, memoirs have exhibited a tendency to multiply ever since Augustine recalled pocketing those pears. His “Confessions,” which began appearing around 397 C.E., were spread out over thirteen books, each conceived as a distinct unit. In his wake, heavy hitters have included Diana Athill, Shirley MacLaine, Maya Angelou, and Augusten Burroughs, each of whom has produced a proper shelf of memoirs. At work, and advancing: Leslie Jamison, Mary Karr, Lauren Slater.