Stop-Time

Stop-Time is Frank Conroy's 1967 memoir recounting his unstable childhood and adolescence across multiple locations in the United States. Rather than following a conventional chronological structure, Conroy organizes the book around vividly rendered episodes involving family disruption, school troubles, and coming of age.

No, Stop-Time deliberately avoids a linear, continuous structure, instead presenting a series of sharply drawn standalone episodes from Conroy's youth. This episodic approach was influential in the development of creative nonfiction and was praised for its literary quality, earning a nomination for the National Book Award.

Frank Conroy published relatively few books, with Stop-Time remaining his most famous work. He later wrote a novel called Midair and the essay collection Dogs Bark, Nobody Buys It, but he was perhaps best known for his long tenure as director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he led the program from 1987 to 2005.

Stop-Time is frequently cited as a landmark in the modern American memoir for its literary sophistication and its episodic, psychologically probing structure. Writers and critics have noted that it helped establish the template for the contemporary literary memoir, influencing authors who sought to elevate autobiography into art rather than simple recollection.