I don't think I've ever really had a problem with sharing the personal or private details of my life. I don't know if that's because I was the youngest of six, raised by a single mother, or if it's because it seemed like our private lives were always on display because we were poor and people would talk. It might also have to do with the fact that my mother was very open and honest about everything, nothing was too sacred for her to explain to her kids. This was good for me and bad for me growing up because there were a lot of times where I should have kept my mouth shut (dinners at new friend's houses) and would start talking about things that apparently were not proper dinner topics. I didn't understand because at my house we talked about anything and everything over dinner.
Now talking about my family problems is a little bit different. If my family is OK with me discussing our problems then I would be OK with it too, but if not it would be very hard for me to talk about those problems with a larger audience than just my intimate friends because I love my family more than anything else in this world and would never, ever want to make them feel that I didn't care for them or respect them. The same goes for my friends because I consider my friends my family.
I feel that Karr's method of protecting her family is above and beyond (I'm sure) what a lot of authors would do. Many people just want to make a buck, and if there family history was a dysfunctional one (as every family history is, just varying degrees) then some authors could probably care less who they hurt as long as the check came.
I believe I would use a lot of similar strategies that Karr uses to check with my family and friends if it would be alright with them to write a book involving them. I would definitely give them the manuscript before hand, I would do research with them before even writing the book to see how our memories matched up. You could tell that Karr did something similar to that when she would tell a story and then say if Lecia was telling you this story it would go like this. Very clever move on her part. I would also change there names if they wanted me to, or even if they didn't.
I am with Karr that Memoir is more about memory and memories can be very fallible. This is why I love Creative Nonfiction as a genre. Because you can do things such as Karr did with altering some events. I know that some people do not like that, they feel betrayed, they want the whole truth, nothing but the truth so help them God. Well nobody has the whole truth with a capital T. Truth is entirely speculative. All one can do is write as close to the truth as they can and call it good. Karr felt the cutting story was important to include, whether it was altered or not because it helped shape who she is and what she believes. It was a teaching moment for her and she felt it could be a teaching moment for others.
Literary styles that I see in the Liars' Club, is creating characters from real people (Mom, Dad..) They are her parents, but they are also characters. She does change it to present tense a lot to have the reader feel the immediacy of what she was feeling. She also writes like a conversation sometimes and has the narrator break from having that fourth wall and talk to the reader as if they are sitting together just having a conversation.
This was a really great book to read because it reminded me a lot of my family, in a lot of ways. It was rough and raw unlike the other books we've read up to this point. It was wonderful for that reason.
