My husband, a doctor, tells me that his patients often say to him, ‘Can I be honest with you?’ He jokes that in these instances he wonders what the point of their visit was if they hadn’t intended to be honest. Isn’t it self-evident that patients need to be prepared to disclose the details of their conditions? The same applies to memoirists: isn’t it self-evident that to create something worthwhile they have to be committed to honest disclosure? Yet often I have ignored, or at the very least struggled with, this supposedly obvious notion.

When it comes to memoirs, honesty is often simply equated with the confessional tone. Memoirists are frequently expected to produce sensational writing—writing that titillates because of its shock value—and then criticised for it. Many memoirists confess (and sometimes invent, as in James Frey’s case) exotic misadventures such as working in S&M parlours or surviving jails in Third World countries. I often enjoy reading those kinds of memoirs and living vicariously through their protagonists. As a writer, I have confessed my own share of at least semi-exotic tales such as the expedition to a fetish club on the night before my wedding, which opens my memoir The Dangerous Bride. But I wonder, does my willingness to divulge certain anecdotes that display my own ‘wildness’ truly render me an honest writer? Is this enough?