Writing From the Wound: How Might the Grief Memoirist Navigate the Intersection of Truth, Honesty and Memory?

Varnish, Jo (2023) Writing From the Wound: How Might the Grief Memoirist Navigate the Intersection of Truth, Honesty and Memory? Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This thesis comprises a creative project, Ready to Run, a memoir written in the early stages of grief, and a critical component which explores how this idea came to fruition, and why a conventional narrative arc was rejected. Instead, the content—that is, the fractured, unpredictable state of deep grief—is recreated in the form. New knowledge is produced in both the creative work, and the insights preceding and proceeding from the decisions made in the writing process. Ready to Run intends to add to an under-written area in the landscape of grief memoir, as it attempts to capture the lived experience of grief: it is written in real time without a strong sense of resolution or closure. It aims to be an honest rendering of the fragmented nature of a life torn open by grief. The accompanying commentary details the main decisions made in the undertaking of the creative work, and the emergent bowerbird methodology employed. While the work of others is examined, the commentary demands a personal style, offering another way the content of the project is reflected in the form. The use of personal archives is explored, as is the potential for a distinction between truth—or accuracy—and honesty, and the memoirist’s responsibility when it comes to authorial and editorial choices for omission and inclusion in memoir. This thesis explores how it might be possible to navigate that intersection of truth, honesty and memory in an idiosyncratic way and create an accurate account that is at once an exercise in real time grief memoir that can be both a comfort to others, and art.