From The Smart Set:
We live in an age of autobiography, one in which young writers cannot even bother to change people’s names to create a novel, in which a story being true is a greater virtue than being well written, or insightful, or interesting.
I have a few unyielding standards for a memoir: Either your book must be exceptionally written (a trait hard to find in memoirs these days) or you must have done something exceptional. You must have traveled to the underground or the heavens and come back with fire or golden apples or at least a little wisdom. It can’t just be, “Daddy hit me, mommy got cancer” — everyone has a sad story, and it is possible to go through a trauma or experience something significant without gaining any insight.
You would think that the spiritual memoir would be a stand out division — after all, if the writer has seen the face of God, he or she should probably get a good story out of that. For centuries, people have been telling stories about spiritual experiences, listing out their sins, telling tales of redemption and light at the end of a very dark tunnel. These past few years, however, have seen a crazy rush on the subject matter, with everyone who has ever thought about religion feeling the need to write about it. Approximately half the United States population will convert or adapt their religious beliefs at some point in their lifetime, which equals a lot of potential memoirists.