ABSTRACT
This chapter explores age in David Almond’s explicitly autobiographical collections, Counting Stars (2000) and Half a Creature from the Sea (2007). The analysis takes an intertextual perspective on autobiographical elements to avoid having to make the tricky distinction between actual and imagined autobiographical events. The field of life writing studies offers useful theoretical perspectives and context to do so. Since Counting Stars and Half a Creature from the Sea are informed by childhood memories in particular, this chapter combines life writing with memory studies. It works with the context and “toolkit” that Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson offer in Reading Autobiography (2001), a set of relevant questions and methods to guide research on various aspects of life writing. Memory is relevant both as a practice and theme in the short stories, as they feature moments of what Svetlana Boym calls restorative and reflective nostalgia. In addition, Almond’s life writing exemplifies a shift from autonomy to community that David Parker has observed in recent life writing.
