Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir

I don't want to say too much so as to save some questions for the discussion on Wednesday, but this book really challenged me. Even though we are told, from the very beginning, that this book is a metaphor, that we can't take it literally, I found myself believing everything Lauren Slater wrote. I took her experiences for what she said they were, got invested in her illness and her family and her identity. I think in the back of my mind I was trying to remember not to take it all at face value, but I had a hard time. Slater writes in such a lyric, convincing way. Until those moments when she would step out of the narrative and remind me that she might not be telling the truth, I was completely fooled.

Fooled is probably the wrong word, because she wasn't trying to "fool" anyone. But I did start to feel foolish for getting so involved and so invested. About halfway through the book I gave up trying to figure out what was "fact" and what was "fiction" and just got frustrated. What's the point of a memoir that doesn't tell you anything about the author? It's like the picture on the front cover. The woman is exposing herself but not revealing anything--or maybe showing us that there's nothing to reveal.

However, by the end of the book, my opinion had changed. I still wonder about writing a memoir in this way, but I think that this book did tell me a lot about the author, and especially about how she perceives herself. Identity is a slippery thing, and I was interested by her statement right towards the beginning that "what you wish is every bit as real as what you are." (pg. 5) I think it's true--we are made of our wishes and perceptions and masks and desires and experiences. What we wish were true is a very big part of who (or what) we are. And the way we see truth, the way truth is seen by us, is individual and revealing and defining as well.