I don't get it

At work today, in a moment of boredom, I googled Lucy Grealy. I came across this web site. It's given me a new perspective on memoirs and the people who read them (i.e me - well, isn't it really all about me, deep down?). So much energy devoted to building someone up or tearing her down. Why the need to judge? Can't she just have been a person who felt and struggled and wrote beautifully about it? Can't that be enough?

Do people read memoirs for lessons? In case they came across a 7 year old girl with cancer of the face? It's not a how-to guide.

Do they read them so they can armchair quarterback someone's life? She never should have touched heroin. Her family and friends were enablers.

And nor, by the way, will anyone's autobiography be irrefutably accurate. That's the point. How the events changed the perspective. You'll never know exactly and why would you need to? Surely the details aren't the important part. Is it me?

What it boils down to is that there are two camps: The Lucy Grealy Is My Hero camp and the Lucy Grealy Was A Selfish Bitch camp. Which one you join depends on which book held the Truth: her autobiography or Ann Patchett's book.

Me, I just thought that Lucy Grealy was funny, entertaining, a great writer and someone who had to fight a tough battle all her life. I thought that came through in both books. I don't see a contradiction at all.