India, March 7 -- Often, memoirists don't declare that their recollection is a version of the truth. In that regard, is a memoir a counter fiction that pushes back against the fiction that a family tells about itself?

I had to [put that disclaimer]. If you put five people in a room and something happens - a betrayal, an accusation, a scene - you will get five versions. Memory twists, shaped by grievance and need. A word becomes a wound, a touch a blow. One will remember an insult never spoken; another a debt never owed. Families stuff their skeletons into closets, keep up appearances, oppress the weak who suffocate in that dark. This book resists that lie.

I'm a journalist. The truth is in my blood. Love the Dark Days was first publishe...