It’s very hard to place where this story begins. As children we were taught that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end; that every hypothesis has a premise, then defending statements and a conclusion. But life doesn’t fit into such neat packages. Since life is a continuum, the story could start anywhere, here or there, earlier or later. The middle might be a big fog, muddled by indecision, self-doubt or just so complicated that it cannot be put into words. The ending is never an ending but always another beginning so it can never really be completed and wrapped up and presented with a big bow.
Likewise the author must decide what is autobiographical, what is pure fancy, something researched, something entirely made up. The author must decide what us real and what is an outright lie; what is a memory, an imagined memory and what is just wishful thinking. And then there’s the line that only the reader might discern rightly or wrongly: what is the author getting at? Is this just entertainment? Or is there a larger point in it? And where does the reader’s memory and experience mix with the authors? And at what point does the author’s story become the reader’s story.
Of course all of these matters have been discussed before, and it would be foolish to think that they will ever be resolved. But now, where to begin?