How did »survival« become a defining framework for understanding personal hardship in contemporary USA? Maren Emde traces the evolution of the survival memoir – a genre born during the 1990s memoir boom. Through an analysis of bestselling memoirs about dysfunctional childhoods, addiction, and divorce by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Karr and others, this study reveals how these texts create intimate communities of readers who recognize their own struggles in others’ stories. Blending literary analysis with cultural sociology, the volume demonstrates how survival memoirs both reflect and shape »survivor culture« – a therapeutic discourse that increasingly aligns personal resilience with neoliberal self-optimization.

How did »survival« become a defining framework for understanding personal hardship in contemporary USA? Maren Emde traces the evolution of the survival memoir – a genre born during the 1990s memoir boom. Through an analysis of bestselling memoirs about dysfunctional childhoods, addiction, and divorce by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Karr and others, this study reveals how these texts create intimate communities of readers who recognize their own struggles in others’ stories. Blending literary analysis with cultural sociology, the volume demonstrates how survival memoirs both reflect and shape »survivor culture« – a therapeutic discourse that increasingly aligns personal resilience with neoliberal self-optimization.