Embracing Ambiguity in the First Person

Mount Kilimanjaro
photo: Destination 360

In nearly every creative nonfiction class I've taught, at least one writer, ironically, struggles to compose in the first person. I'm not talking about those who have been writing about themselves in the second or third person; I'm referring to those whose memoir writing clearly lacks the sufficient presence of a narrator. 

I understand the challenge first hand. My editor told me, during the process of writing my first book, that the parts that are rough to write--the sections that the memoirist would rather gloss over than confront on the page--represent unresolved situations in the writer's life. Ah, I thought, spot on!  It seems that when we write about any difficult topic or, likewise, talk about one, our fluency is challenged. We stammer and parse, our language tentative, hesitant.

Ambiguity and uncertainty often lie at the root of most memories worth composing. So I understand memoirists whose eyes cloud when I suggest delving deeper into issues that lie scarcely below the surface of the narrative. These issues frequently involve the narrator's internal conflicts that, once explored, can give a story more depth of meaning. 

Yesterday, The New York Times Style Magazine featured Andrew McCarthy's essay "Cold Feat," an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, The Longest Way Home. His essay immediately establishes the presence of the narrator's ambivalence in its opening anecdote. It's worth studying the essay's style as McCarthy creates a sure rhythm of scene, summary and reflection which allows the reader to follow his story and believe its emotional impact.

In the essay, McCarthy wrestles with his "desire for independence and...[his] natural tendencies toward separation." He's unsettled that his "self-reliance has created a justification for a solitary way of living that is not useful in partnership." The narrative willingly and openly embraces a critical task for the memoirist--to wallow in ambiguity. That's where our stories lie--in the writer's struggle to make sense of the uncertainties in life experience. 

The subject of McCarthy's essay is an event--the challenge of climbing Africa's highest peak, but the essay is about his his own struggle to work through his need for independence and his desire for partnership. His memoir essay, thus, contains both a subject and a purpose as it tracks the narrator's physical and psychic journey. 

Actor Andrew McCarthy, then and now
"The further afield I went, the closer I felt to my own life."