EAST EGG REVISITED: J. R. MOEHRINGER'S THE TENDER BAR, OR THE PERSONAL MEMOIR AS FICTION

In his memoir, The Tender Bar (2005), J.R. Moehringer recounts how he, a fatherless boy from Manhasset, New York, strived during the late '70s and '80s to come to terms with family issues, while being raised by the men who tended the most popular bar in town. A piece of literature in its own right, The Tender Bar shares its narrative pattern with F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925). My paper tackles this conspicuous influence in order to emphasize how well-known literary motifs may enhance credibility in non-fiction writing.