Closet Autobiography

This chapter gives a close reading of memoirs Cunard wrote about the Irish novelist, George Moore, who became a father figure for her, and novelist and travel writer, Norman Douglas. Marcus investigates Cunard’s refusal to write about her lovers, next to her published remembrances of two older homosexual eccentrics, whom she looked on as literary mentors. The chapter also provides a genre analysis of confessional writing, autobiography, biography, and memoir.