SOURCE: “Autobiography as Vestibule,” in Christian Science Monitor, June 18, 1998, p. B8.

In the following review of When Memory Speaks, Gardner examines Conway's opinions on the purpose of the autobiography genre.

The first person singular serves as the most fascinating of all pronouns. In person and in print, it raises a tantalizing question: Who is the real person behind the “I,” however bold or meek, self-righteous or self-effacing the “I” might be?

As Jill Ker Conway explains in When Memory Speaks, even autobiography can fail to answer that question. Describing memoir as “the most popular form of fiction for modern readers,” she shows how it involves “censorship for public self-presentation.”

Conway, a former president of Smith College, is herself the author of two acclaimed autobiographies, The Road from Coorain and True North. In this brief history of the genre, she examines why readers like to read about other people's...