Memoir-ies

And now...a rant. 

I can not possibly read one more memoir.  At first I was all into it, delving into the crappy lives of bitter, yet amusing authors, glad that my own life has escaped extreme freakishness (for the most part).  I guess i needed to feel normal, but now I'm done.  All the whiny, self-pitying, rising above dysfunctional childhood rhetoric is making me sick.  I'm to the point where a stack of 2-year-old Newsweek's are more appealing than another David Sedaris wanna-be (to say nothing of the man himself) pouring his/her soul onto the pages of a book.  I think the problem originates in the fact that that memoirs are best savored as isolated reading experiences, rather than the 15-book memoir marathon I am coming off of.  One life story to grant a busy professional a little perspective may have its time and place, but the long evenings of Peace Corps village life are best spent memoir free. 

It's not like I meant to read so many memoirs, it just so happens that about 75% of the books that I have at my disposal are autobiographical teat-jerkers.  My theory on this concentration of memoirs in the hands of PCV's is as follows:
A caring mother back in the USA just finished reading a touching true story passed on to her by a coworker.  The book is an account of a thirty-something's arrival at success, despite countless obstacles, barriers and breakdowns.  This mother thinks of her dear child who is slaving away as a Peace Corps volunteer in the wilds of Central America and can't help but draw some comparisons. My lovely and spirited offspring will enjoy this book, she thinks as she packages up said memoir and ships it off to her pride and joy. Her beloved PCV will read it once before passing it off to the PC library while searching for yet another Tom Robbins or Kurt Vonnegut adventure. 

I show up to the PC library once every 3-4 months after a 6-hour bus ride and conduct a similar search for one or two Robbins/Vonnegut's that have slipped past me, only to find stacks of gut-wrenching personal sagas of strife and survival.  I take these books, well, because they are better than no books.  I should have learned after the first ten depressingly uninteresting experiences, but I didn't and will problem continue to read them due purely to the ideas of classic economics.  The whole process has turned me off from writing my own memoir (because I was actually thinking about this).  Maybe I do have a funny/sad/unique story to tell, but then again, maybe not.  Who am I assume that someone else is so interested in what I have to say that they would be willing to put down $24.95 on a hardcover edition of my unlikely rise to success (that is when I get there, or course)?  But then again, you are reading this, so maybe there is room for one more story of a lonely youth who rises above it all, joins the Peace Corps, and single-handedly saves the world through ice-breakers and flip-charts.