Justifiable conduct : self-vindication in memoir / Erich Goode.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goode, Erich.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Deviant behavior--History.

Deviant behavior.

Conduct of life--History.

Conduct of life.

Deviant behavior in literature--History.

Deviant behavior in literature.

Autobiography.

Sociology--Biographical methods.

Sociology.

History.

Physical Description:

xviii, 199 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2013.

Summary:

How do memoirists make their work interesting, daring, exciting, and unorthodox enough so that they attract an audience, yet not so heinous and scandalous that their readers are unable to empathize or identify with them? In Justifiable Conduct, renowned sociologist Erich Goode explores the different strategies memoirists use to "neutralize" their alleged wrongdoing and fashion a more positive image of themselves for audiences. He examines how writers, including James Frey, Susan Cheever, Roman Polanski, Charles Van Doren, and Elia Kazan, explain, justify, contextualize, excuse, or warrant their participation in activities such as criminal behavior, substance abuse, sexual transgression, and political radicalism. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

Charles Van Doren, "Herb Stempel Was the First to Agree to the Fix" 2

Jim Bouton, "If We Explain We're Shooting Beaver, They'll Understand" 8

The Transgressive I, the Exculpatory Account 12

2 Autobiography and Memoir 14

Memoir and Autobiography 18

The Memoir Explosion 23

Literal Facticity: Does It Matter? 28

James Frey, "I Honestly Have No Idea" 36

3 Autonarrating Transgression 43

The "I" and the "Me" 44

Vocabularies of Motive 45

Is to Explain to Condone? 47

The Presentation of Self 48

Accounts 51

Techniques of Neutralization: Theory or Concept? 53

To Whom Are Self-Exculpations Addressed? 58

In Sum: Neutralizing Deviance 60

4 Criminal Behavior 64

Joe Bonanno, "This Is How I Earned My Living" 66

Edward Bunker, "What Else Could I Do?" 70

Jack Henry Abbott, "If You Behave like a Man, You Are Doomed" 75

Jordan Belfort, "$12.5 Million! In Three Minutes!" 80

Accounting for Crime 88

5 Substance Abuse 94

Pete Hamill, "This Is What Men Do" 98

Susan Cheever, "Drinking Was Part of Our Heritage" 102

Steve Geng, "I Was Romanticizing Lives of Crime" 104

William Cope Movers, UI Was Doomed to Fail No Matter How Hard I Tried" 108

Accounting for Substance Abuse 112

6 Sexual Transgressions 113

Roman Polanski, "Everyone Wants to Fuck Young Girls" 118

Kerry Cohen, "My Parade of Boys Continues" 128

Melissa Febos, "I Took Aim and Flicked the Whip toward Him" 133

Kirk Read, "I Wanted to Be Shirley Temple" 138

Accounting for Sexual Transgressions 143

7 Political Deviance 145

Elia Kazan, "I Was Notorious, an Informant, a Squealer, a Rat" 148

Norman Podhoretz, "The Theory Circulated That I Had Gone Mad" 152

Malcolm X, "I Never Have Felt That I Would Live to Become an Old Man" 155

Cathy Wilkerson, "The Intention Was Not to Cause Carnage but Chaos" 162

Accounting for Political Transgressions 166

8 Accounting for Deviance 168

How They Account for Themselves 170

Searching for Common Threads 181

Looking Back 183.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781439910252

1439910251

9781439910269

143991026X

OCLC:

815757792