For Lit Hub, Sarah Hepola takes on the muddy ethical questions of memoir-writing by asking her mother and father what it felt like to be portrayed in her book:
I was being paranoid, but those of us who write memoirs should never underestimate the damage they can cause. I’ve seen close relationships rocked by a memoir. I’ve seen parents stop speaking to their children for years. Memoirs pose a natural threat to the family mythology, those portraits framed on the mantel piece that say everyone is happy and nothing is wrong.
