"If there'd been a better-balanced society, where there were other ways of making a decent living, I think it might have been different. That's not the way this setup work."

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When I was writing the memoir, every page was a battle with myself because I knew I had to tell the truth. That's what the memoir form demands. I also had to figure out how much of the truth do I tell, how do I make the truth as balanced as I possibly can? How do I make these people as complicated and as human and as unique and as multifaceted as I possibly can? For me, that was the way I attempted to counteract some of that criticism.

— Jesmyn Ward