G. Thomas Couser is Professor of English at Hofstra University. He is the author of American Autobiography: The Prophetic Mode; Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography; Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing; Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing; and Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing.

• Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; 1. What Memoir Is, and What Memoir Isn't ; 2. Memoir and Genre ; 3. Memoir's Forms ; 4. Memoir's Ethics ; 5. Memoir's American Roots ; 6. Contemporary American Memoir ; 7. The Work of Memoir ; Works Cited ; Index

Couser has carved out a place on the reading list of any undergraduate life writing module as well as in any bibliography where the classification of genre is a concern ... the book thoughtfully introduces the theoretical foundations upon which the contemporary study of life writing rests; not least of these is the idea that selves are not recorded in life writing but constructed therein.

G. Thomas Couser is Professor of English at Hofstra University. He is the author of American Autobiography: The Prophetic Mode; Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography; Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing; Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing; and Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing.

• Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; 1. What Memoir Is, and What Memoir Isn't ; 2. Memoir and Genre ; 3. Memoir's Forms ; 4. Memoir's Ethics ; 5. Memoir's American Roots ; 6. Contemporary American Memoir ; 7. The Work of Memoir ; Works Cited ; Index

Couser has carved out a place on the reading list of any undergraduate life writing module as well as in any bibliography where the classification of genre is a concern ... the book thoughtfully introduces the theoretical foundations upon which the contemporary study of life writing rests; not least of these is the idea that selves are not recorded in life writing but constructed therein.

G. Thomas Couser is Professor of English at Hofstra University. He is the author of American Autobiography: The Prophetic Mode; Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography; Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing; Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing; and Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing.

• Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; 1. What Memoir Is, and What Memoir Isn't ; 2. Memoir and Genre ; 3. Memoir's Forms ; 4. Memoir's Ethics ; 5. Memoir's American Roots ; 6. Contemporary American Memoir ; 7. The Work of Memoir ; Works Cited ; Index

Couser has carved out a place on the reading list of any undergraduate life writing module as well as in any bibliography where the classification of genre is a concern ... the book thoughtfully introduces the theoretical foundations upon which the contemporary study of life writing rests; not least of these is the idea that selves are not recorded in life writing but constructed therein.