"This book emerges out of a moment in which the definition of autobiography is increasingly stretched across conceptual and disciplinary boundaries. Fascination with the micro, the specific, the idiosyncratic, characterises much of our cultural diet, and from this springs a number of pressing questions. Not least, and to paraphrase Meaghan Morris, is the problem of the banal, or of how to apply criteria of quality and utility to these accounts. Leading on from this interrogative is another pertinent issue concerning publicness; if the focus on micro narratives suits our present purview, what becomes of the macro, overarching narratives of explication?"--Cover.