Critical Mass reports the Memoir is not dead – By Melinda Carroll

Critical Mass the blog of the National Book Critics Circle board of directors states in a blog posted Tuesday, February 20, 2007 that the Memoir is not dead.

John Freeman writes:

“Last summer, around the time we were supposed to be burying the memoir thanks to the excesses and lies of its practitioners, a few bright lights -- several of them now finalists for the NBCC's 2006 prize for autobiography, like Donald Antrim, Daniel Mendelsohn and Alison Bechdel -- showed the form was going to survive the Nasdij, LeRoy, and Frey correction. These books were getting great critical acclaim, though maybe not selling in the numbers they would have before high noon happened on Oprah's show.

Well, it looks like those sales have returned too: this week, 11 of the 15 books on the New York Times paperback bestseller list are memoirs (of a sort).

Former NBCC finalist Liz Gilbert has climbed all the way to #3 for "Eat, Pray, Love," which apparently has over 350,000 copies in print in paperback alone. Over on the hardcover list, 6 of the 16 books are memoirs.

Looking down the catalogue lists for 2007, it looks like there is more noteworthy writing to come.”

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