This chapter traces instances of contradiction to the process of remembering and the appearance of sincerity in writing the life spent writing. How does an intellectual position of prominence impact the autobiographical representation of the writing life? How can a novelist’s public persona and writerly persona be represented autobiographically? How do Roth, Coetzee, and Grass shape and present their writing life and written life in light of their prolific careers in the public eye? Coetzee’s Boyhood (1997) and Youth (2002), Roth’s Operation Shylock (1993), and Grass’s Die Box (2008) are addressed as central case studies. Having established the ethical concerns which arise in literary autobiography in the previous chapter, this chapter draws out concepts of memory and sincerity as they are employed by the novelists to reflect on their writing life. Confrontations with memory culture, their own work, its public perception, and author identity inform the autobiographical rendering of lives spent writing. The different ways in which each of these authors responds to their public status, prestige, and to culturally specific receptions of their life and work will be surveyed as products of an overarching creative impulse to represent the multifaceted experience of a novelist’s writing life.