Metamemoir in Wayne Johnston's Baltimore's Mansion

Abstract

In this essay, Jacob Sandler investigates the tactics used by Newfoundlander Wayne Johnston to harness the power of metafiction in the context of memoir. Sandler argues that there are distinct tensions between fact and fiction in the genre of the memoir generated by the “constructed nature of memory, the self, and life writing.” Sandler compellingly argues that Johnston‘s Baltimore‘s Mansion defies a central convention of memoir—to actively limit and silence the constructed nature of identity formation through memory — by drawing attention to the processes that shape Johnston‘s multi-generational account of Newfoundland identity. In particular, he argues that Newfoundland heritage, stories, and memory, both individual and cultural, are devices used by the text to illustrate the constructed nature of the identities of the text‘s protagonists. By engaging in this study, Sandler also makes a broader claim: that memoirs that employ these tactics are best categorized as “metamemoir.”

Emily Ballantyne