"It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends"
About this Quote
Pekar’s line lands with that deadpan Cleveland candor he perfected: a shrug that doubles as an indictment. On the surface, he’s talking about editorial pushback - people rarely demand revisions. Underneath, he’s sketching a whole ethic of autobiographical writing where loyalty is both currency and constraint. The kicker is the conditional: "if they’re friends". Pekar isn’t pretending to be a neutral documentarian; he’s admitting that proximity edits the truth before the ink dries.
That admission matters because his project in American Splendor was never celebrity memoir or tidy confession. It was the radical proposition that ordinary life is worth recording, warts included, and that the social fallout of recording it is part of the story. The line also suggests a quiet power dynamic: the subject’s comfort is irrelevant not because Pekar is cruel, but because his work treats real people as real - meaning they can be petty, disappointing, generous, or boring, and the page doesn’t owe them PR.
There’s a defensive humor here, too. By noting how seldom anyone asks him to change anything, he implies either that most people don’t read closely, don’t care, or don’t feel entitled to control the narrative. Then he punctures any romantic idea of the fearless truth-teller: friendship buys you "a good light". It’s a candid little confession about how art is made in community - and how even the most brutally honest chroniclers still have a soft spot, and a line they won’t cross, for their own.
That admission matters because his project in American Splendor was never celebrity memoir or tidy confession. It was the radical proposition that ordinary life is worth recording, warts included, and that the social fallout of recording it is part of the story. The line also suggests a quiet power dynamic: the subject’s comfort is irrelevant not because Pekar is cruel, but because his work treats real people as real - meaning they can be petty, disappointing, generous, or boring, and the page doesn’t owe them PR.
There’s a defensive humor here, too. By noting how seldom anyone asks him to change anything, he implies either that most people don’t read closely, don’t care, or don’t feel entitled to control the narrative. Then he punctures any romantic idea of the fearless truth-teller: friendship buys you "a good light". It’s a candid little confession about how art is made in community - and how even the most brutally honest chroniclers still have a soft spot, and a line they won’t cross, for their own.
Quote Details
| Topic | Friendship |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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