The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative Paperback – October 11, 2002

Gornick plainly lays out the heart and soul of story. She unmuddies the mind and provides focus for writing clearly and purposefully. I’m encouraged to clear the fog from my own messages and to know with certainty what I want to say. I recommend this book for all writers.

Perfect looking book, great delivery (Prime) I splurged. So happy to get this; other writers borrow and never return. I' read every work Vivian Gornick wrote. I wish SHE appreciated herself as much as I do. Every writer needs this book. Every memoir writer must owny, read, and re-read this book. The must, I insist, must, read Fierce Attachments. I own every Gornick book. I have to replace them because somebody borrows and never returns. Sigh. But I must own every copy, especially these two, to refer back to many times a year. I hold friends captive reading passages to them aloud.

It feels disrespectful to offer anything but praise for a book that captured the distance it takes to execute memoir pieces successfully. For writers wrangling with their personal material, trying to turn it into an engaging narrative that along the way may enlighten the reader, this is the premiere text. My purpose was to know what it took and this book describes the process with convincing clarity. What I did not enjoy about the book was its format. It was organized like a text with samples of mostly obscure memoirs and personal essays that the author then critiqued for you. Without having read those works in their original form I had only a cursory interest in her description of the content of those pieces and found myself reading hurriedly to get to the part about technique.When I purchased the book I knew nothing about it and mistakenly expected a discussion of memoir writing without frills. The book was more than that. Without a doubt, I think it is filled with essential information for aspiring memoir writers. If you happen to be an instructor yourself, there are questions you may find useful at the back of the book.

I heard about Vivian Gornick long before I discovered her book, _The Situation and the Story_. About 25 years ago, I had the good fortune to attend Gornick’s presentation at a local college, and I’ve been a fan ever since. There is something about her writing that is just like her in person: authentic, completely honest, and absolutely serious. Gornick will call you out--in person or on the page. You must be fearless to discover yourself in your writing.Granted that most memoirs and autobiographies seem to be written by Anglo-Americans, _The Situation and the Story_ is for everyone, but it’s not a how-to book. You’ve got to do soul searching, and you’ve got to love discovering words and how to use them. What Gornick says about writing is true for all: “A memoir is a work of sustained narrative prose controlled by an idea of the self under obligation to lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver wisdom” (91). In other words, the memoir you write is about yourself, but you can’t simply record everything, every time someone hurt you, or all the pains you have suffered. Writing about your life is an art and craft. Gornick quotes V. S. Pritchett: “You get no credit for living” (91). Of course, you do have to place yourself in context, within the circumstances of your life. No one that I know writes a memoir without writing about their parents, their town, or the schools they attended, or something about the world they’ve inherited. Gornick says you must know “Who exactly is this ‘I’ upon whom turns the significance of this story-taken-directly-from-life? On that question,” she continues, “the writer of memoir must deliver . . . with depth of inquiry” (92).If you are not used to writing, why not start with paragraphs? Keep a journal, write a page a day, until you are confident with your use of language. Take a class in memoir writing, and find a group of people among whom you can find support. Above all, be careful where you get your identity, and don’t personalize all your failures. Look at the society in which you live. Gornick quotes from dozens of memoirs including from people who perceived themselves to be failures. Before you write a memoir, you must read what others have written. I’ve mentioned that Gornick’s book is not a how-to, but she is the best guide a person could ask for. What a wonderful journey her book has been.

Gornick manages to articulate fundamental, but slippery, questions about what goes into an effective piece of memoir writing. As a survey of the form of memoir, and exploration of various notable works and their respective authors' perspectives and approaches, this book is an illuminating must-read for any writer.

Though there were gems of knowledge interspersed throughout, the book lacked cohesive, overall analysis in the last section. There was the chance to compare all the works and include a litany of takeaways, yet the last section was short rather than long. I was hoping for more synthesis of the material chosen for this work, as well as more tactical wisdom from this uber-experienced teacher of writing.I was disappointed by the dated book selection and by the lack of awareness of having chosen exclusively white writers. I just don't understand how the year the book was published, 2001, different choices were not made in that regard.

Well, life is busy, but I opened the book & said I have time to read one story. It began so smoothly like the beginning of the movie To Kill a Mockingbird and Scout Finch starts talking. She just draws you in and connects her life to yours. I read the story "He and I" and I can't wait to read more. It's here with me at work now and I wish I could go off in a corner and read. I'm sure I will learn something useful from Vivian Gornick's book besides being enchanted by the stories.