Book Review: When Memory Speaks by Jill Ker Conway

Introduction: Autobiography as Gendered Genre

When Conway claims in the first sentence of When Memory Speaks that autobiography is "the most popular form of fiction for modern readers," readers will immediately raise flags of protest (3). After all, autobiography can hardly be considered a form of fiction when it is defined as the truth-filled personal memoirs of those whose stories lend insight into the lived experiences of readers. When Memory Speaks is Conway's meditation on the potency of autobiography as a genre. In this book, Conway analyzes not the structure or medium of autobiography itself, but the phenomenon of reader affection for the genre.

Conway is not attempting to teach readers how to construct their ideal personal memoir, or to laud the strong points of the most notable published autobiographical accounts. Instead, Conway uses When Memory Speaks to show how gender issues and the medium of autobiography intersect. The book demonstrates how female authors can use autobiography as a tool for reconstructing gender identities and for shaping social norms and cultural values. It also aims for an overarching theory of autobiography that literary critics, scholars of the genre, and historiographers may find helpful. A lack of focus and insufficient substantiation of some of the author's claims mar the text's validity somewhat, causing Conway to miss the mark on several of the book's main points. Nevertheless, Conway's goal in When Memory Speaks is ambitious and certainly worthwhile as a starting point for exploring gender issues in self-reflective narrative.

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis of Conway's Argument

When Memory Speaks is divided into nine chapters, beginning with one that introduces the text's principal premises. In Chapter One, "Memory's Plots," Conway wonders whether women can wrestle autobiography from patriarchal social structures and institutions, including language itself. The author invokes postmodern theory and feminist theory alike, referring to issues such as the male gaze (Conway 4). Yet Conway does not celebrate the many female writers — let alone female autobiographers — who have used their command of language to convey the need for social justice. Readers will undoubtedly relate to Conway's lament that patriarchal norms persist. However, the connection between patriarchy and autobiography is not adequately established or clarified in the opening chapter.

Conway's lack of focus in When Memory Speaks is therefore immediately noticeable and colors the reader's subsequent experience. It seems from the first chapter that Conway is more interested in exploring feminist theory from a sociological standpoint rather than a literary one. Alternatively, Conway could have directed the substantive content of When Memory Speaks into the realm of historiography, given the centrality of personal memoirs to the process of constructing history.

Granted, Conway does celebrate the contributions of key female autobiographers in the Western tradition. The author admits that the focus in When Memory Speaks is on the Western tradition — and while acknowledging this is important for retaining integrity and validity, Conway would have bolstered the book by researching the role autobiography has played in non-European societies. Moreover, autobiography takes many forms and extends far beyond the confines of prose. Film, music, oral tradition, and the arts all contribute to the global corpus of female-led autobiographical narratives that, taken together, advance a universal understanding of how women have used their voices and located their position of power within patriarchal societies. Conway provides readers with a cogent overview of the history of autobiography, but begins only with the Christian mystical tradition and figures such as Julian of Norwich. When Memory Speaks would have been more effective had the author chosen to focus on the evolution of female autobiography rather than simultaneously trying to explain why the genre remains popular. Conway also never clarifies why autobiography can be considered fiction.

Intersectionality, Race, and Missed Opportunities

In "The Secular Hero," Conway uses the Frederick Douglass narrative to show how autobiography can and often does serve as a means to reveal systematic oppression, helping to promote social justice and a transformation of social norms. This chapter also covers the autobiographies of luminaries like W.E.B. Du Bois, demonstrating that Conway is aware of the way race impacts personal identity construction and, by extension, collective identity construction. Conway unfortunately overlooks the contributions made by African American women to this conversation, missing a significant opportunity to illustrate how race, class, and gender intersect through the medium of autobiographical memoir.

Chapters like these are also purely expository, lacking the thesis-driven or persuasive energy that would elevate When Memory Speaks to a level readers might find profound. Conway does, however, lay the foundation for future scholars to explore these issues more deeply. In the third chapter, "The Romantic Heroine," Conway delves further into issues related to intersectionality, showing how feminism and abolitionism converged in the nineteenth century — evident in multiple literary genres but particularly in autobiography. In this chapter, Conway claims that "women have come up with life histories which seem complementary to those of men," but fails to expound on the claim, causing it to lie flat (43). On the other hand, Conway does raise important questions related to identity construction, which remains one of the core themes of When Memory Speaks. In spite of the weaknesses in Conway's approach, this focus on identity construction stands as the greatest strength of the text. Female autobiographers, consciously or not, convey their own socially constructed lives; their self-reflection enables a deconstruction of social structures and institutions.

Autobiography as a Tool of Liberation and Social Justice

Conway also shows how female authors have utilized autobiography as a deliberate tool of liberation. Memoirs allow for creative subversion: female authors can use the power and nuance of language to convey anguish, pain, discontent, and protest without overtly challenging patriarchal norms and institutions. Bereft of actual political power, women leveraged their capacity for creative self-expression to regain status and influence. After the achievement of universal suffrage in Western societies, female authors gradually altered both the ways they used language and the ways they presented their life histories. A more comprehensive treatment might have offered readers a glimpse into how the tone and narrative style of female autobiography changed over time, employing empirical tools such as content analysis. Conway's overview of the subject nonetheless serves as a teaser for what will hopefully be a surge of interest in studying autobiography through a more systematic methodology.

Another approach would have been to actively seek out examples of purposeful feminist narratives — autobiographies written deliberately for political provocation and to promote social justice. As Comerford and Fambrough point out, the "gender autobiography" offers opportunities to "reconstruct social relationships" and stimulate new discursive practices in self-reflective literature and historiography (411). Conway occasionally does achieve the apparent goal of When Memory Speaks, as in the chapters "Feminist Plots" and "Assertive Women." In these sections, Conway shows how many feminist authors have used autobiography to construct what Miller calls an "alternative identity" (1). Had Conway supplemented these chapters with more substantial examples from the literary and historical record, the entire book might have reached greater heights.

Conclusion: The Strengths and Limitations of When Memory Speaks

As long as readers remain aware of the limitations of When Memory Speaks, the book will remain worthy of a place in any collection of works detailing the political and social function of autobiography. Conway's ambition is commendable, and the questions the book raises about gender, identity, and self-narrative are important ones that deserve continued scholarly attention.

Works Cited

Comerford, Susan A. and Mary J. Fambrough. "Constructing Learning Sites for Solidarity and Social Action: Gender Autobiography for Consciousness Raising." Affilia, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 411–428.

Conway, Jill Ker. When Memory Speaks. New York: First Vintage, 1999.

Miller, Nancy K. "Representing Others: Gender and the Subjects of Autobiography." differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 1994, p. 1+. Academic OneFile. Accessed 26 Nov. 2018.

Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson (Eds.). Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.