DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

Narrative Selves: Our Philosophy for Everyday Life

Autobiographical Memory and the Construction of a Narrative Self: Developmental and Cultural Perspectives
Edited by Robyn Fivush and Catherine A. Haden. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2003. xvi + 240 pp. Cloth, $49.95.

Personal narrative is ubiquitous. The stories we construct to tell and retell with others are a means of establishing our unique sense of self both in distinction to and in relation with others. Personal stories provide form and function to events we experience and remember—events we anticipate and hope for. With the development of symbol use, children start telling stories and thereby construct personal narratives. Some narratives are brief causal explanations of an experienced event, whereas others occur in conversational turns and are open-ended, collaboratively worked on, and never fully completed. Personal narratives, whether practiced, well organized, and engaging or novel, fragmented, and not yet ready for prime time, share a resemblance, a set of rules, by which they can be identified and distinguished from language use in general.