Reading Memoir: Photos or No Photos?
Do you like memoirs that include photos? And how about trying to conjure memories from your own photographs?
Yesterday a friend of mine who lives over the pond in New Zealand messaged me that they had just finished reading my memoir, Sins of My Father and they had been so moved by it, but they were really disappointed that there were no photographs of my family in it. They asked me if I could send them some photos of my parents, specifically my mother. I thought this was funny and kind of odd – I did of course send them some photos! - but it also resonated, and reminded me of one of the most consistent criticisms I had back when it was published. Where are the photos! It was even mentioned in a review in the Daily Mail that it was a shame there were no photographs.
You might also know this feeling: you’re revelling in the vivid descriptions of place and people, and in the narrative there might even be mention of the narrator using a photograph to help them conjure memories, and you flick through the pages looking for these photos to back up the images in your mind … but there are none!
There was a reason why there were no photographs – it was discussed with my editor – which I will expand on below, but I would also love to know what you think about photos or no photos in memoirs, and any recommendations you have of memoirs you’ve read that have included photographs. I’ve also included a writing exercise below which might feature in my WIP book, INTO BEING: the radical craft of memoir and its power to transform (forthcoming, MUP, 2025)
Recently, I revisited an interview I did soon after my memoir was published – it was for Talk Beliefs and was such a good production, and I was really struck by what a lovely resource it now is … because of its photos, collected from when my book was published, and spanning my childhood through to archive images of the Rajneesh cult my dad was a disciple of. The photos add a whole other dimension to what I am speaking about, perhaps an emotional connection, a filling in the gaps of story. Although of course this is an interview, and it’s more interesting to look at images than simply someone’s face. In other words, it works here, I think, whereas reading a book is a private activity, just you and the words on a page, and your imagination, and other more nuanced things are at play.
The photos on the hardback cover of my memoir work hard for the book. They capture the love I felt for my dad and my pride on being on his arm, but also how much I felt an outsider in the Rajneesh cult – dressed like all the other kids, but walking in from the side, grasping hold of my hands, the only one in the image who is on her own. When I asked my editor about whether or not we should include images in the book itself, she said she felt they would detract rather than add something to the narrative. Of course there is probably a cost issue to be considered too. But I appreciate that with this kind of book, which is a categorised as a literary memoir, the choice to not include photographs leaves the story and the people in it to the imagination; and so much about reading is about bringing your own experience to the page – allowing the writing to conjure your own associations, your own emotions. That’s why it’s so satisfying for us writers: reading is a private activity, and every reader brings something different to the experience. The same book is different for everyone who comes to it.
Having no photographs in the book also reflects my decision to not name anyone, as I felt strongly a need to protect those people I love, as much as is possible. Memoir is not an exposé of the intimacies of a person’s life – it is a story, above all else, and the people who feature in it are there to service that story.
I also feel that in the age we live in, where so much of our lives are on the internet – and people only need to pop your name into Google and a whole lot of images pop up, there are other ways of seeing those images. I have put some of them on my website, and there are some here. They are in articles, podcasts, video interviews.
I am not passing judgement on those books that do include photos. Memoirs that spring to mind are The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn, a family memoir about a daughter’s relationship with her alcoholic father and too-close-for-comfort-at-times rivalry with her mother, and Tim Guest’s My Life in Orange, of course, about growing up in the same cult that my dad was involved with, led by guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. There is something intimate about inviting the reader in on a life, as if sitting with them and showing them the family album. It’s a different experience, and in the end, perhaps even a different book, than one that doesn’t do this.
I’d love to know what you think? Do you want family snap shots in the memoirs you read, or are you happy for images conjured by the text to be left to the imagination?