Everything I Know About Love

Memoir is a genre of nonfiction that focuses on a significant time in the author’s life or chronicles the author’s dealings with a specific topic (e.g., love, religion, coming-of-age). What differentiates memoir from autobiography is that an autobiography covers the author’s entire life whereas a memoir is traditionally more tightly focused. Memoir relies on the conventions of creative nonfiction, such as narrative structure, characterization, and the balance between exposition and scene. As with all nonfiction, memoirs can incorporate epistolary elements such as letters, emails, text messages, newspaper articles, photographs, and other real-world content related to the author’s life and the topics their memoir explores. Alderton’s memoir is structured as a chronological narrative, but there are some instances of flashing back or forward, such as the chapter about Farly’s younger sister, Florence, who is mentioned briefly in other chapters before the one devoted to her. Everything I Know about Love also includes transcripts of text messages and emails, some of which are real, while others may be invented as an occasion for satirical commentary on the artistic scene, baby showers, weddings, and other supposed milestones in a Western woman’s life.