She creates a window into the consciousness of her speaker, the girl Joan, that allows us to witness what her memory retains.  We can only guess at those experiences that have been left out.  This may be the distinction between memoir and autobiography.  And this is, for me, what makes memoir, as a genre, so fascinating.  We may or may not be given the factual truth, but we are allowed to observe the personal truth of our speaker as she grows up.

Read more at the Speaking of Books blog.