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Today, in my course on "Literary Kinds" we used the workbook prompt that asked us to think about what "genre" this piece is--> "What makes this text a 'story in fragments' rather than an essay in fragments, or a life in fragments?"

...and I wrote this:

What's the difference between a story and an essay and a life? The earliest version of this text appeared in my book:  that was for me, clearly, a story about my life and how it was broken by my brother's death. This second version has several other more academic layers in it, several other analytic dimensions; I was quite (self) consciously making it more analytic and professional, and writing for a larger audience. I was working with the idea of breaking (not immediately resonant or positive for me), working through the idea, and also working very hard @ the form --writing in fragments to talk about fragmentation. Very heartening for me, this week, was to read Clare Mullaney's story-essay, which seemed to copy that form for her own purposes.

So: its not a life--it's a life, shaped and represented. It was a story on its first form--less mediated, less self-conscious about shape and concept, than the second, essay form, which really thinks about breaking, and my relation to it, and my need for continuity--"I must depart from this volume." There's another layer of reflection, of analytic distance than there was the first time around.

But then I think (endlessly!) of Cassie Kosarek's telling us, in another class visit, earlier this week,  of the roots of "essay" in "essai," to try out, attempt, experiment...