An alphabetical memoir
Marcia Aldrich explores a suicide via an unusual structure. Companion to an Untold Story by Marcia Aldrich. University of Georgia Press, 262 pp. It’s a gorgeously written, geniusly structured tale about a friend of Aldrich’s who committed suicide. I loved it.—Cheryl Strayed, in an interview A straight-ahead chronology may seem the natural way to tell a tale. To convey experience by showing it unfold. But as many a memoirist learns—and many a novelist, for all I know—chronology is a hard …