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- Brian Wansink, PhD.
Each time a writer begins a book they make a contract with the reader. If the book is a work of fiction the contract is pretty vague, essentially saying: In the contract for my novels I promise to try to show my readers a way of seeing the world in a way I hope they have not seen before.
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A contract for a work of nonfiction is a more precise affair. The writer says, I am telling you, and to the best of my ability, what I believe to be true. This is a contract that should not be broken lightly and why I have disagreed with writers of memoir in particular who happily alter facts to suit their narrative purposes.
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Break the contract and readers no longer know who to trust. I write both fiction and nonfiction — to me they serve different purposes. On my noticeboard I have pinned the lines: In the 12 years since its publication I have continued to explore the themes of civil war, though almost exclusively in fiction. Fiction allows me to reach for a deeper, less literal kind of truth.
However, when a writer comes to a story, whether fiction or nonfiction, they employ many of the same techniques, of narrative, plot, pace, mood and dialogue. This is one reason I think the distinction between fiction and nonfiction prizes is, well, a fiction. These writers have broken the boundaries of nonfiction to reach for the kind of truth that fiction writers covet. It made no sense. We are entering a post-literate world, where the moving image is king. And more novels than ever before are set in the past.
This is largely because the essence of human drama is moral dilemma, an element that our nonjudgmental society today rather lacks. A blend of historical fact and fiction has been used in various forms since narrative began with sagas and epic poems. There is a more market-driven attempt to satisfy the modern desire in a fast-moving world to learn and be entertained at the same time. In any case, we seem to be experiencing a need for authenticity, even in works of fiction. I have always loved novels set in the past.
But however impressive her research and writing, I am left feeling deeply uneasy. Which parts were pure invention, which speculation and which were based on reliable sources? She lives inside the consciousness of her characters for whom the future is blank. The problem arises precisely when the novelist imposes their consciousness on a real historical figure. Restorers of paintings and pottery follow a code of conduct in their work to distinguish the genuine and original material from what they are adding later.
Should writers do the same? Should not the reader be told what is fact and what is invented? The novelist Linda Grant argued that this also gives the writer much greater freedom of invention. Keeping real names shackles the imaginative writer perhaps more than they realise. For a time I even stuck to a pedantic sequence of fiction followed by fact as if it were an unwritten commandment passed down to autodidacts like me. There was also a certain amount of piety involved. Reading should be about learning. Pleasure should be a secondary consideration.
I still recall the very first nonfiction book I ever read: The Blue Nile by Alan Moorehead. Even the most devoted film fan must appreciate the occasional documentary. As for my own favourite nonfiction book, it would have to be An Immaculate Mistake , an exquisite memoir of childhood by Paul Bailey. I often tell book festival audiences that I want to write fiction myself, to which the cynics in the audience suggest I write the next manifesto. I like to think myself as anti-genre-labelling.
There is nothing more likely to stunt your creativity than to think of walls between genres. I understand that booksellers, and even readers, need to know if a book is a crime novel or literary or commercial or romantic but for a writer, thinking in those terms is limiting. Also, at the risk of sounding like a pretentious sixth-former, the divide between fiction and nonfiction is inherently false according to the multiverse theory, in that all fiction is true in one universe or other, so when you write a novel you are writing reality that belongs to somewhere else.
But there is another reason the divide is false, or at least why it creates false ideas. And that is because things categorised as nonfiction can be inauthentic while fiction can contain more truth. The aim of any writer, even a fantasy writer, is the pursuit of truth. I have written nonfiction and fiction. I wrote a science fiction novel that was very autobiographical about my experience of depression, and then I wrote a nonfiction book about depression. We need both genres, sometimes at the same time, because the moment we trust too much in one fixed idea of reality is the moment we lose it.
But as a reader, I must admit I read more nonfiction than fiction at the moment, because there is so much good stuff around and because I am writing fiction and my mind likes the counterbalance. It might seem logical that nonfiction, with its rigorous foundation in fact, would be a more persuasive instrument of social change than fiction; but I believe this is not the case.
We are feeling creatures, and often it is only our refusal or inability to empathise that allows us to pursue our cruelties. Fiction gets under the guard. It creates empathy, changes fixed opinions and morality, and contributes to reform of law and social practice. The sweatshop is still with us and so are slavery, the denial of rights to women and the sufferings of those swept aside. You will not emerge from these books unchanged. It is, I think, generally true that most writers write either fiction or nonfiction, to the exclusion of the other, most of the time; though it is easy to think of exceptions to this rule.
Nicholas Shakespeare, for example, is a much-admired novelist, but he has also written an excellent biography of Bruce Chatwin. As a writer, I specialise in biography, which seems to suit my interests and aptitudes. Being nosy, I enjoy investigating the lives of others, like a detective, or perhaps a spy. That these others are real people is an essential part of the process.
I can imagine a biography of a fictional character, but it would not be the kind of biography that I should want to write. Though I write nonfiction, this does not mean that I do not read fiction: I notice that dedicated readers of fiction tend towards new books. I am only slightly embarrassed to admit that the novel I am reading at the moment is by Marcel Proust. In any case I feel that those readers who restrict themselves to fiction may be denying themselves pleasure as well as instruction. I would argue that biography can be as enriching and as entertaining as fiction.
At its best, biography teaches us about life itself, just as fiction does. The great man had written almost every type of book, including works of both fiction and biography, so he knew a thing or two. The goal of every author of every piece of writing is to get the reader willingly to suspend disbelief. Every piece of writing puts forth some logical argument and some theory of cause and effect for the simple reason that words, especially prose words, are sequential.
Nonfiction, history, is about what is known to be, or generally accepted to be, accurate. Facts are like archeological finds — they must strike us as tangible and real, therefore likely, plausible, attested, but also new and revelatory. The promise of nonfiction is that it is accurate, and therefore, like an archeological site, incomplete — here are the stone walls, here is part of a mosaic, here are two goblets. My theory concerns what these objects might mean, how they might be connected to an earthquake for which there is evidence, but I cannot go too far toward completeness or the reader, who might otherwise enjoy my narrative, will cease to be willing to suspend disbelief in its accuracy.
It is certain that after I die, more tangible evidence will surface, some plates, some clay tablets, a skull with a spike pounded into the cranium, and so theories will change, and I will be praised for having stuck to the facts as they were then understood. But the history of literature shows that listeners and readers want to know not only what happened, but also how it looked, sounded, smelled, felt, and also what it meant then and what it means now.
They want to know but also to experience, and therefore they seek completeness, and so they willingly suspend disbelief in fiction The Odyssey , the Book of Genesis, Waverley , Flashman. What they get from these sources is not only pleasure, but emotional education, the exercise of the imagination, an enlargement of the inner life. A writer of fiction also has a theory, a theory about what happened, and also about whether the past and the present are similar, whether people change or remain the same.
As with the archaeologist, my theory, if I am a fiction writer, will be found wanting after I die, but pleasure in my stories may linger War and Peace or surge The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Chances are that in order to construct my narrative, I did plenty of research, but just as with historians, I know that as yet undiscovered sources will turn up. The test for my theory will not be whether my narrative is factually accurate.
It will be whether my idea of human nature retains immediacy. Couney taught us something new. Here are the titles that have caught our eye. Happy reading, and be sure to check back soon for our favorite books of After their son, Dhaqaneh, kills himself in a suicide attack, Somali immigrants Gacalo and Mugdi reluctantly agree to host his widow, Waliya, and children in Oslo. Their arrival is more disruptive than imagined, as Waliya throws herself into her religion and her children explore their newfound freedoms.
Exes Claire and Matt, the pair at the center of The Adults , both want to spend Christmas with their young daughter, Scarlett. So they jump at the idea of the three of them, along with their new partners, heading off on a holiday vacation. Mysterious, handsome teacher Tom Fitzwilliam attracts a lot of attention, including the wandering eye of his neighbor Joey, whose innocent crush becomes something more intense.
Elsewhere in town, a paranoid mother is convinced Tom is following her and is desperate to expose him. A gorgeous read for anyone who finds themselves unable to fall back asleep. In The Eating Instinct , journalist and Real Simple contributor Virginia Sole-Smith recounts how her daughter, who needed a feeding tube after surgery, struggled to learn to eat again. The experience drove home the fact that many of us are uncomfortable with food in one way or another. She interviews parents having trouble affording dinner, patients recovering from gastric bypass surgery, and others to investigate American food culture now.
When a high school senior gives a commencement address that raises questions about the government, she is punished by being sent back in time to a college town in the late s to be rehabilitated. Though the narrator vows to keep her head down and focus on her studies at this time, she soon meets another "exile" and falls in love, putting her a great risk.
Nine people sign up for a day wellness retreat at the exclusive Tranquillum House. Readers will devour Nine Perfect Strangers. In her slim yet impactful new novel, Idra Novey explores the costs of silence and of speaking up. A South Korean couple, Najin and Calvin, immigrate to the United States with their daughter Miran, leaving their healthier daughter, Inja, behind with relatives. Women tend to bear the mental and emotional load remembering to buy toilet paper, asking the spouse and kids to put things away. When Helen's friend Karel goes missing, she suddenly finds herself believing there might be more to the story than just myth.
As he progresses through his school and career, Gerald begins to understand how the idea of the American Dream has devastating consequences for those who do not rise to meet it. But upon returning to suburbia, she found herself in the midst of Midwestern culture shock. This hilarious memoir is will resonate with anyone who's ever left the hustle and bustle of city life for a more quiet existence. Ivy House is a place of refuge for the large Hennessy family. So after Toby is violently beaten, he returns there to heal and care for his dying uncle. When a skull is found on the property, the police begin to unearth the darker truth.
Tana French's The Witch Elm is a chilling mystery about the unreliability of memory. Will the money in his estate go to his young wife or his adult children? Is the fortune smaller than they thought?
Kerry Hudson: ‘Yes, this is “made up” but this is also the most truthful thing I have to give you’
Wang makes a strong debut with this fun drama. In The Library Book , journalist Susan Orlean explores that case and other library fires and shows readers what history loses when books, and the safe spaces that house them, are targets. As a child of unfit parents, Tena Clark was raised by her family's black maid— an experience that shaped her views on race and life and put her at odds with her family.
In her moving memoir, Southern Discomfort , Clark reflects on growing up and coming out in the s.
Story within a story
Unsheltered , the new novel from Barbara Kingsolver, introduces us to Willa Knox, who is confronting life's unpredictability. After losing her job, she is forced to move to an inherited home that's falling apart. There she finds comfort from an unlikely source: You've probably taken a personality test at some point, possibly just because you were interested, or maybe because it was mandated by a school or job.
Ten years later, the son reappears and is quickly admitted to a psychiatric facility where a Maya, a speech therapist, tries to get him to talk about what happened over the long decade he was gone, while also grappling with secrets in her own past. The story begins with Elsie, the wife of a missionary in India in the s.
This gorgeous novel examines the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship. If you could invite anyone—dead or alive—to dinner, who would they be? That's a question asked during parties, in interviews, and now in Rebecca Serle's whimsical novel, The Dinner List. Just before Sabrina's 30th birthday party, she finds out she'll dine with her best friend, three people from her past, and Audrey Hepburn. This fun book will make readers reflect on friendship and lost love and how we remember the past. The McCloud siblings have lost everything— first their mother to childbirth, then their father to a Category 5 tornado.
Tucker disappears, leaving the eldest, Darlene, to care for her two sisters. Three years later, Tucker, now a radical animal rights activist, reappears after bombing a local cosmetics factory to kidnap his 9-year-old sister, Cora. Told by Darlene and Cora, Abby Geni's haunting literary thriller, The Wildlands , explores humans' relationships with nature and what drives a person to fanaticism. Eleven-year-old Wash is a slave on a sugar plantation when his master's brother—an enigmatic scientist and abolitionist—chooses him to be a personal assistant.
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After they have to flee the plantation in the night, a bounty is put on Wash's head. In Washington Black , Esi Edugyan depicts how even as Wash leads an adventurous and boundary-pushing life, the risk of enslavement is never far behind. A riveting story about identity, slavery, and freedom. After the war, Juliet works a humdrum job at the BBC and believes the past is behind her when unusual happenings—old colleagues turning up on streets, a threatening note in the mail—can't be ignored.
In Atkinson's quietly suspenseful novel, nothing is as it seems. At the start of Joyful , author and designer Ingrid Fetell Lee describes a struggling Albanian city that painted its buildings bright colors. Almost immediately, crime declined. People filled the sidewalks. This was in part because color, Lee writes, universally brings people joy. In her book, Lee names 10 "aesthetics of joy," from Energy things like color to Play round objects.
Blending science and tips, Lee shows readers that looking outward—at flowers in a vase or fireworks in the sky—can brighten our days. When Clare arrives in Havana, Cuba, she is shocked to see her husband, Richard, who was killed in an accident only a month before. As she follows him through the island, the lines between what is real and what isn't start to blur, and Clare is brought on a highly unusual adventure, one that may be happening only in her mind. When newly-divorced Virginia accepts a job in the information booth at Grand Central Terminal in New York, she only wants to make enough money to support herself and her daughter.
What would you do if you came home to find another family had moved to your home? But when Fiona tries to sort out what could be happening, she realizes that both Bram and the boys are nowhere to be found. This heart-pounding thriller follows Fiona as she desperately hunts for answers and for her family, exposing how little she really knew about Bram along the way. This fascinating investigation dives into the world of heart science and the scientists and doctors pushing medical progress further—at any cost necessary.