The American myth of the endless frontier continues to inspire autobiographical writing. The period spanning second-wave feminism to the present includes many confessional books—novels and memoirs in particular—that challenge traditional notions of what is proper to reveal. From Maya Angelou’s recollections of growing up black and poor in the segregated American South—and being raped as a child—to Cheryl Strayed’s hike along the Pacific coast frontier after the death of her mother to Lena Dunham’s precise detailing of intimate feelings and behaviors, these books establish an exhilarating limitlessness in American autobiographical writing.
Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (1969)
Alix Kates Schulman, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (1972)
Susannah Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted (1993)
Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail (2012)
Lena Dunham, Not that Kind of Girl (2014) |
