12 Types Of Memoirs – Which One Is Yours?

We’re writing about types of memoirs – with examples. We include what a memoir is and ask: Which type of memoir is yours?

About Memoirs

Writing a memoir is a type of creative non-fiction. It is not an autobiography. Autobiographies focus on the entire life of the writer. They are usually similar to history text books about famous people. A memoir has a theme and takes place over a certain time, revealing a part of a person’s life. Read: What’s The Difference Between An Autobiography And A Memoir?

We read memoirs to experience somebody else’s life vicariously. We read to experience an interesting or inspiring or frightening account of a life – when something changes forever. Often the memoir is based on a pivotal event or experience. We write memoirs to share our experiences and sometimes hope that others can learn from our mistakes and successes. Read: What happened that put me on this path?

We also use literary devices to tell our stories. Our many fiction writing techniques will keep your readers turning the page. In all memoirs, we write our stories in scenes. There are usually 50-60 scenes in a memoir. Read: Yes, You Do Need Scenes And Sequels In Memoirs

We also have to write about others in our memoirs. Remember that they should be three-dimensional people. Interview as many people as you can when you are writing. Read: 5 Ways To Write About Real People In Memoirs

A Few Tips For Memoirists

1. Readers must be able to picture your settings. Read: How To Create Perfect Settings In Your Memoir
2. A memoir focuses on a time, or an event, or series of events, or a choice, that is tied together with a theme. It is not your entire life story. Read: Writing A Memoir? Narrow Your Focus
3. Write your memoir in first person present tense. Memoirs are intimate, and it makes sense to use first person. A memoir is a kind of confession and using ‘I’ works in this genre. Read: Why First Person Present Tense Is Perfect For Your Memoir
4. Have you used the five senses? Using the five senses helps you to show the story. Read: The Power Of The 5 Senses In Stories
5. Have you included conversations with others? Dialogue helps you to show and not tell. Read: How To Use Dialogue In Memoirs
6. Have you learned something? People read memoirs to find out what you learned and how you coped along the way. Read: 7 Really Good Reasons To Write A Memoir
7. Every memoir has a theme and that theme will help you find out which type of memoir you’re writing. A theme can also be strengthened by the use of motifs.
8. It’s also useful to have a premise with which you can work. The premise can be described as the reason you are writing your story. It is a point you want to prove through the power of storytelling.

12 Types Of Memoirs – Which One Is Yours?

1. The Travel Memoir

These stories are about how travel can change a person forever. They show the places visited, the cultures experienced, and the author’s personal growth on the journey. They also deal with challenges, both internal and external, that have been faced and overcome. Imagine travelling alone to a new country. What are we feeling? What are we thinking? What choices do we make? Who helps us along the way?

Examples:

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert records the author’s journey of self-discovery through Italy, India, and Indonesia.
2. Wild by Cheryl Strayed recounts the author’s solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, and her journey of healing and self-discovery.
3. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux portrays Theroux’s four-month journey by train in 1973 from London through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia.
4. Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer is part travel narrative, part memoir written while he was trying to write about D.H. Lawrence.
5. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America—majestic mountains, silent forests, and sparking lakes.

2. The Food Memoir

A food memoir is written through the lens of food, culture, and cooking. Their focus is on the author’s personal experiences and memories. Food is used to explore themes like family, trauma, heritage, survival, culture, power dynamics, and self-discovery. It shows us meaning through its symbolism, rituals, and sensory details.

Examples:

1. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain details the author’s experiences and challenges working in the culinary industry, from humble beginnings to stardom.
2. Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl is a blending of food and life stories.
3. Blue Plate Special by Kate Christensen describes her 1970s upbringing in Arizona and uses food to show the story.
4. Julie and Juliaby Julie Powell recounts how Julie cooked every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul.
5. Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunee is about a Korean woman who was adopted by a family in Louisiana. It is a memoir about the search for identity through love, hunger, and food.

3. The Transformational/Personal Memoir

This story normally starts negatively dealing with subjects like loss, grief, divorce, illness, or addiction (anything life-changing). The story usually works towards a positive (not necessarily happy) ending.

Readers love reading about survivors, and heroes, and rags-to-riches stories. This memoir is mostly about the hardships that the author endures, and how they fight to overcome their circumstances.

It can also include those who are on a spiritual quest. And it can include positive memoirs about an experience.

Examples:

1. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion explores the author’s grief following the death of her husband.
2. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt depicts the author’s experience of growing up in poverty in Ireland.
3. On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff shows us how the author overcomes her own difficulties by helping others heal at yoga retreats.
4. Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman shares her journey escaping the strict Satmar Hasidic Jewish community to pursue freedom for herself and her son.
5. The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer and Back by Katherine Rich is a bold, funny tale of illness, joy, and the triumph of love in the midst of despair.
6. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff tells the true story of the twenty-year relationship between a New York writer and a London bookseller through their correspondence.
7. Virgin Time by Patricia Hampl is about the author’s search for faith. This leads her to a monastery in northern California, where she is able to settle into the real goal of her search: the silence of prayer.
8. Levels of Life by Julian Barnes is about ballooning, photography, love, and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart.
9. A Life in Smoke by Julia Hansen is Julia’s evocative and inspiring account of the extreme measures she took to quit smoking — decidedly not recommended by the medical profession.

4. The Coming Of Age Memoir

This focuses on the transition of the writer from childhood to adulthood. The memoirist writes about the significant events and experiences in childhood and their teenage years that form who they will become.

Examples:

1. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel explores the author’s relationship with her father and her coming-of-age as a lesbian.
2. Educated by Tara Westover recounts Tara overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college and enlarge her world through education.
3. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox, crazy psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus.
4. One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty is her description of growing up in the South. It shows the interplay between black and white, between town and countryside, between dedicated schoolteachers and the public they taught.

5. The Family/Childhood Memoir

These stories can be negative or positive. They give us glimpses into the dysfunctional dynamics of a broken family, or the incredible power of a close family bond.

Examples:

1. I Have Something to Tell You by Chasten Buttigieg includes topics from his early life in a conservative Midwestern family, dealing with sexual assault, domestic violence, and growing up closeted.
2. The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr is about the author’s turbulent childhood and the complexities of her family relationships with a hard-drinking father, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at the age of 12, and a mother who married often.
3. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls explores the author’s unconventional and challenging childhood with her dysfunctional family.
4. Brother in Ice by Alicia Kopf uses stories of polar exploration to make sense of her own concerns as she comes of age as an artist, a daughter, and a sister to an autistic brother.
5. Boyhood: Scenes From Provincial Life by J.M. Coetzee is a fictionalised autobiographical work focusing on his years spent growing up in South Africa, especially his troubled time in Worcester. He was tormented by guilt and fear with a father he despised, and a mother he both adored and resented. It also looks back to happier times.
6. This Boy’s Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff is a book about his childhood in the American Northwest in the 1950s. It includes everything from  paper routes to whiskey, fistfights to friendship, and betrayal.

6. The Celebrity Memoir

People want to know what it is like to be famous. In this type of memoir, the writer shares their experiences, feelings, thoughts, opinions, and viewpoint about life in the public eye. These include sport memoirs.

Examples:

1. Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (ghostwritten by J. R. Moehringer) details his childhood and the profound effect of the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, as well as his teenage years, subsequent deployment to Afghanistan, his relationship with his family, and his father’s second marriage. He includes his marriage to Meghan Markle and the couple’s stepping back from their royal roles.
2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama documents his life from his early years through to the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden.
3. Open by Andre Agassi (with J. R. Moehringer) explores Agassi’s journey from a financially disadvantaged upbringing to becoming a successful tennis player
4. Bossypants by Tina Fey chronicles Tina’s joys and setbacks from childhood to adulthood. It reveals her crazy family life, delivering pointed humour and self-deprecating observations about her life experiences.
5. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah gives a heartfelt and funny recounting of his experiences growing up in South Africa. The book chronicles his childhood navigating racial segregation, his strong bond with his strong Xhosa mother, and his journey to self-discovery.
6. Becoming by Michelle Obama is an honest and fascinating insight into the major decisions, challenges, and events in her life.

7. The Professional Memoir

These memoirs tell a story of how somebody has been successful in a certain profession, industry, or business. They can provide insights into their industries and professions. They are not necessarily celebrities, but they are usually well-known in their communities. They talk about how they overcame obstacles, how they reached their goals, and usually give tips for people reading the memoir.

Examples:

1. This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay is a picture of the harrowing, hilarious, and ultimately chaotic life of the junior doctor in all its gory glory, dark comedy, and unavoidable sadness.
2. What We Fear Most: Reflections on a Life in Forensic Psychiatry by Ben Cave is a compassionate and witty memoir exploring his decades-long career treating severe mental illness in prisons and secure hospitals.
3. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Nike co-founder, Phil Knight chronicles the history of Nike from its founding as Blue Ribbon Sports and its early challenges to its evolution into one of the world’s most recognised and profitable companies.
4. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by William H. McRaven is a self-help book, offering 10 life lessons learned from Navy SEAL training to help readers overcome challenges and find success.
5. Homeless to Billionaire: The 18 Principles of Wealth Attraction and Creating Unlimited Opportunity by Andres Pira details his business journey from being homeless and unemployed to telemarketer to a Thai baht billionaire.

8. The Portrait Memoir

These memoirs are based on an event or experience of a person who is not the author of the book. Somebody could use a diary, for example, and write a story based on what was included in that narrative.

People could write a portrait memoir of a parent, a best friend, a sibling, or a teacher. It usually has to be somebody that the author knows well. The writer does not necessarily include their own thoughts or feelings – only what they have experienced or found in their research.

Examples

1. Patrimony by Philip Roth is a book where Roth watches as his 86-year-old father, famous for his vigour and charm, battles with the brain tumour that kills him.
2. My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme is the bestselling story of Julia’s years in France in her own words.
3. Naked Portrait by Rose Boyt is a memoir about her father, Lucian Freud.
4. Thunderclap: A Memoir on Life, Art and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming explores the lives of her artist father and a Dutch Golden Age artist, Carel Fabritius.
5. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff offers a father’s perspective on his son’s battle with addiction.
6. My Week With Marilyn by Colin Clark is a remembrance of the week Clark spent escorting Marilyn Monroe around England.

9. The Confessional Memoir

This focuses on wrong actions or decisions made by the memoirist. It is like someone going into a confessional booth (hence the name) to talk to a priest about their sins.

After discussing the consequences of their actions, the writer uses the book to talk about how they made amends with those involved. They end up making better decisions and living a better life.

Examples

1. Drinking, A Love Story by Caroline Knapp lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking.
2. Lit by Mary Karr follows her descent into the hell of alcoholism and madness—and her astonishing resurrection.
3. All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert is a memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love, or to any other passion, substance, or craving, and who yearns for liberation.
4. Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne offers an look at her life as a self-identified sociopath, exploring the constant tension between her manipulative tendencies and her desire to live a stable, loving life.
5. Note Found in a Bottle by Susan Cheever reveals her struggles with alcoholism and her journey towards recovery.

10. The Nature Memoir

In nature and environment memoirs, authors share their connections with nature and environmental concerns. They blend their personal story with reflections on the natural world, exploring human and environmental connections with their tales. These memoirs include themes of ecology, conservation, survival, belonging, and the author’s relationship with the natural world.

Examples:

1. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard reflects on the author’s observations and experiences in the natural world.
2. Every Natural Fact by Amy Lou Jenkins shares her series of hikes with her son who is moving into adolescence as they explore some of life’s big questions.
3. The Home Place by J. Drew Lanham. Through his observations of birds and other wildlife, Lanham explores the ways in which nature has both divided and united people throughout history.
4. A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold discusses conservation, ecology, and the author’s relationship with nature.

11. The Historical Memoir

Political and historical memoirs give us a lens through which we can view historical events and political climates through the eyes of those who lived them.

Examples:

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a book kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
2. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien portrays the psychological burden of war through a collection of short stories based on O’Brien’s own experiences in Vietnam.
3. 107 Days by Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the most consequential presidential campaigns in American history.
4. Night by Elie Wiesel is a candid, horrific, and poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.
5. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei recounts his childhood imprisonment in American concentration camps during World War II.

12. The Author Memoir

This memoir recounts a personal, non-fiction narrative where an author shares significant memories about writing, and the writing life. They can also focus on a specific theme, time, or turning point in their life. They include how they write and give readers tips for writing their own stories.

Examples:

1. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott offers us a step-by-step guide on how to write and on how to manage the writer’s life.
2. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King is a critically acclaimed bestseller that shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.
3. The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr is an exploration of one of today’s most popular literary forms—the memoir. It is an account from an accomplished master ruminating on her craft.
4. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg reflects on the relationship between Zen sitting practice and writing, the importance of place, and the power of memory.
5. James Patterson: The Stories of My Life by James Patterson is a funny, often moving memoir that offers a way to understand the dizzying world of a bestselling writer.

The Last Word

I hope you’ve found your memoir type in this article. Use it to guide the style, tone, and mood of your memoir.

Top Tip: If you want to learn how to write a memoir, buy our Secrets of a Memoirist course.

by Amanda Patterson
© Amanda Patterson

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