As a memoirist, it’s almost inevitable that you struggle with your ending.
It’s important to remember that the ending of your memoir is not the ending of your life, but the completion of your theme.
In this article, I’ll explore the key aspects to ending a memoir, and look at examples to see how other memoirists have pulled it off. Lastly, I’ll give you a Story Weapon to make the ending of your memoir both satisfying and cathartic.
Learning how to end a memoir starts with recognizing that your ending isn’t the end of your life, but the completion of your theme. The final chapters should dramatize a genuine shift in perception, often bringing the story full circle by echoing its opening, while revealing what the writer now understands that they didn’t at the start. Writing that truth requires giving yourself permission to be honest, even when it feels exposing.
Completion of theme
A memoir isn’t a play-by-play of your life, but the exploration of a theme that’s been part of your journey. These are broad ideas that help make the personal details of your story universal. We all struggle with issues such as mortality, grief, love, coming-of-age — the list goes on. The theme is what makes your story universally relatable.
In the final chapters of your memoir, you are moving towards the resolution of your theme. This is where your protagonist is forced to make a difficult choice between what they want and what they need, thus resolving their dilemma.
The ending is an opportunity to dramatize your theme in a meaningful way to your reader. This is where you’re bringing your story full circle by noticing how your beginning offers a potential bookend to your conclusion.
In my article on starting a memoir (which you can read here), we looked at examples of great beginnings in memoirs. To maintain the symmetry, let’s return to those examples to see how they end.
Memoir examples
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
This comedian explores the idea of race and shows the reader moments from his childhood that were inseparable from his birth as a mixed-race baby in apartheid-era South Africa. Though it sounds harrowing (and has its painful moments), it’s joyous and funny too.
As he wraps up the story, Noah chooses to conclude the theme with another story about his mother. Without spoiling too much, here’s a reminder of how the first chapter ends:
She broke out in a huge smile and started laughing. I started laughing, too, and we stood there, this little boy and his mom, our arms and legs covered in blood and dirt, laughing together through the pain in the light of a petrol station on the side of the road in the middle of the night.
And here’s how the final chapter ends:
She broke out in a huge smile and started laughing. Through my tears, I started laughing, too. I was bawling my eyes out and laughing hysterically at the same time. We sat there and she squeezed my hand and we cracked each other up the way we always did, mother and son, laughing together through the pain in an intensive-care recovery room on a bright and sunny and beautiful day.
Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
This story’s focus is on mortality. Dr. Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer at the age of thirty-five. He died two years later, writing this memoir in between. At the end of his book, he chooses to share the mirror of the beginning.
The book opens with a diagnosis promising death and ends with the birth of his daughter:
They wrapped her in blankets and handed her to me. Feeling her weight in one arm, and gripping Lucy’s hand with the other, the possibilities of life emanated before us. The cancer cells in my body would still be dying, or they’d start growing again. Looking out over the expanse ahead I saw not an empty wasteland but something simpler: a blank page on which I would go on.
Open by Andre Agassi
The world-class player explores his hate for tennis even as his skill rewarded him with a spot in the Hall of Fame.
After we see his career through his eyes, the book ends with a chapter called “The Beginning.” Agassi concludes the theme, acknowledging that hate for tennis is awfully close to love, much closer than apathy would be. He has to give a speech to the students at Agassi Prep. He has his own ideas about theme:
My theme, I think, will be contradictions. A friend suggests I brush up on Walt Whitman. Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself.
I never knew this was an acceptable point of view. Now I steer by it. Now it’s my North Star. And that’s what I’ll tell the students. Life is a tennis match between polar opposites. Winning and losing, love and hate, open and closed. It helps to recognize that painful fact early. Then recognize the polar opposites within yourself, and if you can’t embrace them, or reconcile them, at least accept them and move on. The only thing you cannot do is ignore them.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Here the actress shows us her perspective on her career and fame. As the title suggests, her relationship with her mother is the theme of the work. McCurdy completes the theme by letting go of her mom, who she at times worshipped and at times hated.
In a wonderfully satisfying way, the last chapter takes place by her mother’s headstone and explains the title of the memoir:
Mom made it very clear she had no interest in changing. If she were still alive, she’d still be trying her best to manipulate me into being who she wants me to be. I’d still be purging or restricting or binging or some combination of the three and she’d still be endorsing it. I’d still be forcing myself to act, miserably going through the motions of performing on shiny sitcoms. How many times can you pratfall over a carpet or sell a line you don’t believe in before your soul dies? There’s a good chance I would’ve had a complete and public mental breakdown by this point. I’d still be deeply unhappy and severely mentally unhealthy.
I look at the words again. Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful…
I shake my head. I don’t cry. The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” starts playing from the sad man’s stereo. I stand up, wipe the dirt off my jeans, and walk away. I know I’m not coming back.
Reveal a transformation
The purpose of every story is to reveal a transformation.
As a result of the things you’ve experienced, the choices you’ve made, the time that has passed, and the act of writing your memoir, you’ve transformed. You’re not the person you were in the beginning of the memoir, both the beginning of the text and the beginning of the writing process.
Transformation simply means a shift in perception. What do we understand about your situation that we did not understand at the beginning? How do you reframe your relationship to your struggle in a way that allows you to transcend it and move on?
Choosing to write is choosing to evolve consciously, and this is especially true for memoir. The irony is that through your protagonist’s journey, they’ve gained something by letting go. By reframing your relationship to your struggle, you have likely found a greater sense of peace or liberation within. You’ve earned a new perspective. The ending is where you dramatize this new perspective to your reader. Let’s look at our examples again.
Memoir examples
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The shift in perception brings the author closer to how his mom sees the world. In the first chapter, as a child, Noah argues with his mom about her confidence that God has a plan. He can’t bring himself to believe it, especially not when he’s visited by violence all too frequently.
I won’t spoil everything about the ending, but the last episode is about Noah and his mother reckoning with an attempt on her life. The fact that she survives is a miracle. Like when he was a boy, she assures him of her faith in God. Here are the final words in the memoir, where Noah expresses his transformed perspective:
“You know,” I said, “for once I cannot argue with you. The gun, the bullets–I can’t explain any of it. So I’ll give you that much.” Then I couldn’t resist teasing her with one last little jab. “But where was your Jesus to pay your hospital bill, hmm? I know for a fact that He didn’t pay that.”
She smiled and said, “You’re right. He didn’t. But He blessed me with the son who did.”
Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
The transformation here is one that must have occurred in the author as he wrote the memoir. Any of us, told we have little time to live, would grieve and feel anger. In the last chapter of the book, Dr. Kalanithi expresses a new perspective on time and mortality. It’s a rare perspective, informed by the tragedy and beauty of his circumstances. It’s not the perspective of the man at the start of the memoir or the young boy we hear about in the middle of it.
Here’s an excerpt that expresses Dr. Kalanithi’s new perspective:
With little to distinguish one day from the next, time has begun to feel static. In English, we use the word time in different ways: “The time is two forty-five” versus “I’m going through a tough time.” These days, time feels less like the ticking clock and more like a state of being. Languor settles in. There’s a feeling of openness. As a surgeon, focused on a patient in the OR, I might have found the position of the clock’s hands arbitrary, but I never thought them meaningless. Now the time of day means nothing, the day of the week scarcely more. Medical training is relentlessly future-oriented, all about delayed gratification; you’re always thinking about what you’ll be doing five years down the line. But now I don’t know what I’ll be doing five years down the line. I may be dead. I may not be. I may be healthy. I may be writing. I don’t know. And so it’s not all that useful to spend time thinking about the future—that is, beyond lunch.
Open by Andre Agassi
The author’s transformation in this story brings him to gratitude. He was a prodigy from a young age, coached by a harsh father, pushed to go pro before he had any chance to consider another life. Agassi spent most of his life running from tennis even as he excelled. In his own words, he tried to play as little as possible. He skipped Grand Slam tournaments often.
In the final few pages of his memoir, Agassi tells us about a casual tennis match with his wife. His wife, by the way, is tennis legend Steffi Graff. Let’s see the transformed perspective of a boy who resented tennis:
I serve. She returns, then gives the Stefanie wave, as if swatting a mosquito, meaning she’s done. Time to pick up Jaden. She walks off the court.
Not yet, I tell her.
What? She stops, looks at me. Then she laughs.
OK, she says, backpedaling to the baseline. It makes no sense, but it’s who I am, and she understands. We have things to do, wonderful things. She can’t wait to go and get started, and neither can I. But I also can’t help it.
I want to play just a little while longer.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
The author’s opinion of her mother vacillates wildly as the person behind the pages reckons with the impact of their relationship.
In the last chapter of the book, McCurdy is able to express both her anger at her mother and admit that she misses her anyway. She’s grateful to have the opportunity to grow and move on from that relationship now. Her transformed perspective brings her to a wonderful point about how we treat the dead:
This is my first time visiting Mom’s grave since her birthday, last July. My visits have become less frequent through the years, even though I promised Mom, per her request, that I would visit her grave every day. In the beginning, I visited once a week and felt guilty about it, like it wasn’t enough. But with time and with reality, the visits have become less and less, and so has the guilt.
I sit cross-legged in front of her grave. I take a longer look at the words on her headstone. Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful, strong, thoughtful, funny, genuine, hopeful, playful, insightful, and on and on…
Was she, though? Was she any of those things? The words make me angry. I can’t look at them any longer. Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?
Your story weapon: Give yourself permission
Fear is always a part of writing. We deal with the fear of failure, the fear of embarrassment, and the fear of making mistakes. For some of us, fear can be crippling.
With memoir, there are other factors involved. We may fear hurting family members, or fear being abandoned or rejected. That we’ll be sued or thrown into writer’s jail for saying all of these mean things. We feel the urge to hold back, to filter, to omit the embarrassing things.
It is important to write your memoir for yourself. Of course, you want it to get published, but it is difficult to write your truth when you’re looking over your shoulder imagining these pages being read.
If you don’t write for yourself first, you won’t give yourself the permission necessary to make it truly live. Something magical tends to happen when we let go of the result. We write the forbidden and the story comes alive.
The miracle that I’ve seen again and again is that through this process, we ourselves are transformed. We understand our story in a new way. We are led to a more compassionate understanding of our situation. We develop a newfound compassion for ourselves and the characters in our story. We forgive. We are transformed through the experience. But first we must be willing to write our truth.
Memoir involves the betrayal of a lie.
No one gives you permission to tell your truth. You must claim it for yourself. The ending of your memoir is your last word with the reader and it’s especially crucial for you to present the truth as you see it. Give yourself permission to be honest and raw. Forgive yourself for having a perspective that might differ from the perspectives of the other people that show up in the pages. If you can do that, you’ll be a lot closer to knowing how to end a memoir.
Learning the techniques behind effective memoir writing allows you to tell personal stories with greater depth, authenticity, and emotional impact. To explore these principles in a practical, step-by-step way, join my next 90-Day Memoir workshop and begin shaping your experiences into a memoir readers will remember.
