Exactly one week ago two big-time celebrity memoirs were released, one by Andre Agassi and the other by Sarah Palin.
But the two books couldn’t be more different.
Lets start with judging these books by their covers. Palin’s cover is a blue-sky, airbrushed, so-perfect-it’s-almost-cheesy photo. Aggasi’s cover on the other hand is a photo shot so close that you can see every skin pore, every strand of seven-day beard stubble, every reflection of camera flash bent over his pupils.
And these covers pretty much summarize what’s inside the books, too.
[Disclaimer: I didn't read either book. I just flipped through them. Thus this isn't a serious review...it's just some impressions I felt like sharing. OK, now back to my analysis...]
What’s really, really interesting here is the writing style Aggasi (or more likely is writing collaborator) has chosen.
Specifically, he doesn’t use quotation marks and he writes in present tense–both the sort of post-modern literary techniques that have been all the rage in the last five years.
For example, let’s take this line of hypothetical dialogue, written here in the traditional format your English teacher taught you:
“I think I can become an awesome tennis star,” I said.
“I think you can, too, Andre,” she replied. “And you should be in some really sweet commercials.”
Sweet commercials? That would be great, I thought.
“Sounds good,” I said.
And that day I knew for the first time that I also desperately wanted to shave my head.
And now let’s reword this in the style he actually uses, with a present tense and lack of quotation marks. Notice how the present tense puts you into the moment, and how the lack of quotation marks forces you to listen more carefully to the voice inside your head to hear the flow of conversation and sort out dialogue from thoughts and observations.
I think I can become an awesome tennis star, I say.
I think you can, too, Andre, she replies. And you should be in some really sweet commercials.
Sweet commercials? That would be great.
Sounds good, I say.
And I know for the first time that I also desperately want to shave my head.
See the difference? Interesting, huh?
I think it’s a really cool choice, and it puts Aggasi’s book head-and-shoulders (no pun intended) above other celebrity sports memoirs in terms of writing. This style means the anecdotes will be more raw, more honest, and more interesting.
And obviously this is in contrast to Palin’s book, who writes (and again, this would actually be the type of book written by a ghost writer) with traditional past tense storytelling and grammatically proper dialogue, which in her case, too, is probably the right choice. After all, she’s not trying to win writing awards. She’s got, well, other goals for her career.
