The book brims not only with the self-exculpation you might expect but also with a good deal of self-congratulation which, in the circumstances, you might not.
That's when I realized I had entered the uncharted (for me) territory of second-person Meera would address the book to her son, as an account, an exculpation, of their life together.
If Watergate made it axiomatic that the coverup trumps the crime, the Checkers speech can be regarded as an occasion when a style of exculpation proved more memorable than the substance of an accusation.