The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

Memoir is a genre of narrative nonfiction but is distinct from autobiography. Memoirs and autobiographies are both firsthand, written accounts of the author’s life. However, an autobiography hews closer to the chronological facts of the author’s life, while a memoir offers readers the author’s personal experience of a pivotal moment or a series of thematically connected moments. In a memoir, the author’s “feelings and assumptions” are central to the narrative, rather than the facts of events (“What Is a Memoir?” Celadon Books, 3 Dec. 2024).

Memoirs are typically personal, offering reflections and insights based on the author’s life experiences. Ann Patchett’s collection of essays, These Precious Days, is one such example, in which Patchett explores themes of relationships, community, and the importance of writing to her sense of identity, as experienced in her life. Several subgenres within the memoir genre have arisen over the years. Transformation memoirs, for instance, are those centered around the author’s experience of overcoming a specific hardship or challenge in their lives. Tara Westover’s Educated details her journey of obtaining an education after overcoming the challenges presented by her survivalist Mormon family.