The truth will always remain uncertain. The author's peer Lucy Lehmann seemed to borrow (and alter slightly) from a Monroe film titled The Prince and the Showgirl to produce a fiction of her own. Titles, like Walter Benjamin's quote collection, can intrigue, seduce and deny or defy origins. Roland Barthes' The death of author or what I suggest, subjective interpretation of the object (here without jouissance) will always question origins. Open to interpretation we cannot read with eyes wide shut. Critical reflection is an active engagement with questioning and rethinking a story as well as a problem. Including other perspectives creates uncertainty in the genre memoir, because the writing remains subjective and driven by the author.
Neuroscience like a judge in the courtroom investigates the physicality and locatedness of the feelings and therefore actions from and of remorse. Remorse in neuro research is located somewhere with guilt in the prefrontal cortex and regret in the medial orbitofrontal cortex. Shame is elsewhere in a tiny area called pregenual anterior cingulate cortex. Lying has been associated with diminished amygdala activity as well as the prefrontal cortex and its association with decision making. The brain like string theory or quantum mechanics is a muscle and a cabinet of curiosity. Like space, one can explore the potential of improving relations with others through physical lived experience and enjoy positive energies through knowledge about the brain and the damage others cause through lying, lack of shame, refusing consent and egocentred narcissism that dominates discussions and the landscape. Why this title and why this memoir? A New York reviewer I agree with argued that the industry that constructs self help and Memoir writing has phantasmagorically destroyed the witness and truth telling from, for example genocide, war crimes and ritual abuse, (or trust in testimonies)to become an ego driven pursuit for fame.
Memoir, whose mirror?
Levinas suggested the face provides an ethics. A relation with the divine. Transcendence out into the world means to uncomfortably accept criticism as well as responsibility. Neuroscience and Heidegger suggest we try to conceal more than we reveal and this reveals what we think others can't see or feel: the other remains unknown.
Authenticity? More, a question and approach that suggests the genuine in uncertainty not an absolute truth.