Memoir is not Autofiction.
On reading bad reviews & contracts with the reader.
I’m two weeks away from publishing my first nonfiction book.
A few months ago I was nervous about the release for one reason, but now I’m hesitant about it for a whole new reason. (More on that later.) It’s called The Möbius Book, and if you’ve somehow missed my shameless1 plugs, it’s one half memory and one half fiction. It’s about having any kind of faith (in people, god, things, the future, love, etc), losing those faiths, and regaining new forms of faith. It is, in no way, autofiction. (The fiction half runs surreal.)
As a reader, I don’t have any particular feelings about autofiction, which I would define as mode in which a writer uses the conventions and forms of a novel or short story to tell a story that very closely resembles something they’ve lived through, with a main character that very closely resembles or is even named after the author. (Despite the sometimes convoluted debate around the genre, that’s all autofiction is.)
I’ve never written it,2 but I would do so if it was t…