Lance Armstrong's Memoirs

This post discusses the brief difference between memoir and truth. All writing is subjective, even historical writing. We must always remember that fact. Memoir is telling the story how we remember it; it is selective, unlike autobiography, which is pretty much the tale from the beginning. Autobiography, too, can be subjective. It is edited, and we leave things out. The more famous we are, the more we may leave out. These forms of personal writing, are perhaps, our last chance to portray ourselves as we would have the world see us, unless we write our own obituaary. Lance Armstrong is apparenly being sued by two men for fraud and related causes of action on the grounds that his memoirs are a lie. This is in light of the recent revleation by Armstrong that he did use drugs to enhance his performance in cycling compeitions. The local radio hosts discussing the story also mentioned James Frey and his A Million Little Pieces. While I certainly don't think anyone should lie, I think we need to be aware that even fiction is autobiograhical, and lines blur in the literary world. Reader beware. No story is new, and fiction itself has been called a way of "lying to tell the truth." Maybe we should place memoir in the genre of fictionalized verisimilitude. But, how can these men win? If Armstrong inspired athletes, was he wrong, even if he left out information? Did these two men rely on his book to their detirment? How can they prove damages to themselves, and causation, that Armstrong's book caused their injuries, if any? Perhaps anyone who was inspired by an book or published work could bring such a suit. Can we sue Harper Lee for inspiring us to fight for injustice, or J.D. Salinger or Ray Bradbury for making us look at ourselves at different stages of our lives? Will we sue romance authors for inspiring ill-advised love affairs? Will we sue biographers for writing about notorious people at all? Could they be setting bad examples by writing about criminals and controversial figures as well as writing about saints and those who would better the human condition? Maybe this is not as much about the Kevin Frey's and Lance Armstrong's of the world, or the Clifford Irving's of my day, as it is about squelching expression and creativity, and having outsiders tell those of us who write how we may portray ourselves, and who we really are. I repeat, the motto of the day might be, Reader Beware! Adn for those of us who have studied our Reader Response theory diligently, I suggest we use it. Hand is bad; sorry for any typos.