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67 chapter 3  Authoring Childhood the road to recovery and redemption Personal histories—in all their varieties—serve as individualized testimonies to getting a “successful” life together (however success is defined) and/or to the failure of self-remaking in terms of the dream. —Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, eds., Getting a Life: Everyday Uses of Autobiography I’m on deck the dawn we sail into New York. I’m sure I’m in a film, that it will end and lights will come up in the Lyric Cinema. . . . I stand on the deck with the Wireless Officer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn’t this a great country altogether. —Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes In chapter 2 I began to explore the ways in which autobiographies of childhood construct a relationship between the autobiographical child and adult reader. Following on from this, in this chapter I explore the impact of the adult autobiographical author in the production and reception of autobiographies of childhood. The adult autobiographer constructs the child self, bringing the child back to life a generation on. To write an autobiography of childhood is to inhabit and/or challenge the identities that are available for articulating childhood experiences at a particular cultural moment. What relationship is constructed between the adult autobiographical author and the child self he or she represents? What links are made between childhood and adulthood both inside and outside the text (for example, within the text’s representations and in promotional material and author interviews about the autobiography)? And what tropes or templates emerge for representing this relationship, for example, the resilient child and the recovered adult? The second question for investigation in this chapter is: How does the presence of the adult autobiographical author affect the ways in which we 68 contesting childhood interpret the text? Autobiographies are unstable, dialogic, and shifting: They cannot be unified through appeals to a human author. Yet despite the prevalence of this view in theory, the adult author remains ideologically and commercially important to the promotion and reception of autobiographies of childhoods. Autobiographies of childhood are commonly promoted on the grounds that the author is a worthy subject. Autobiographies of childhood commonly make use of a child narrator—giving the impression of a rediscovered child who is able to narrate his or her own experience. Even though most readers recognize this as a textual contrivance, it has come to signify a perceptible synthesis between the author’s child and adult selves. The apparently self-actualized, successful adult is qualified to speak on the behalf of both selves. I explore these issues in light of theories of authorship and look at two case studies: Andrea Ashworth’s Once in a House on Fire and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. Why are these particular authors able to tell their stories at this time? Or, to paraphrase Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, what does it mean to be an autobiographer of childhood at this particular cultural moment (Reading Autobiography 165–166)? For example, what are the implications of autobiographical authors such as Ashworth identifying themselves as survivors of child abuse? These narratives are commonly authenticated through the particular performances demanded from authors of traumatic autobiographies of childhood: resilience, recovery, and self-reflexivity. To understand the significance of authorship in autobiographies of childhoods it is necessary to first briefly review the status of the author within contemporary literature and its industries. As I have suggested elsewhere, at a time when two or perhaps even three generations of literary theorists have been raised on the notion that the biography of the author is almost irrelevant to the text, in the contemporary world of book publication and marketing the author has, if anything, become even more crucial to a book’s success (“Blurbing Biographical” 806). Authorship and Contemporary Autobiography In major cities around the world each year, you will find authors promoting their books: at writers’ festivals, at book launches, at in-store appearances. Eager bibliophiles flock to “meet the author” sessions, keen to get copies of their books signed by the celebrity author and ready to hear the author’s words of wisdom on writing, and on life in general. Authors—particularly autobiographers—have come to fill myriad cultural roles: public intellectual , moral compass, therapist, and teacher. But perhaps most significantly, [3.144.17.45] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 09...

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