Adam Braver discussion on Readerville ... continued

.
The Adam Braver discussion on Readerville.com is over (although it will no doubt remain on-line). A number of things were said about that favorite subject of mine: the line between fact and fiction.

Karen Templer:

... any historical record has gaps in it, things we don’t and can’t know. If a writer takes the liberty of filling in those gaps, then we’re looking at fiction rather than nonfiction. But there’s no bright line between fiction and nonfiction ... , and historical fiction (for want of a better term for books-that-include-real-people-or-events) is a long continuum. “Girl with a Pearl Earring” has real people in it, but the story is entirely fiction. Nobody knows who the girl was; Tracy made the whole thing up. So let’s say a book like that goes at the fiction end of the continuum. Then at the other end, what would be the nonfiction end, you’ve got a book like Capote’s, where it’s extensively researched and based not very loosely at all on real people and events, but narrative devices are used in the telling of those events. So it’s closer to documentary, but it’s literary documentary.

Adam Braver, in responding to a number of posts, said:

... the nature of storytelling has always been a combination of real details and added details--sometimes consciously for the sake of narrative, and sometimes unconsciously, as our memories reconstruct the events for a better narrative. So in that vein, I don’t mind these blends.

And then he said something very dear to my heart:

On an ethical level, however, I do think one has to be upfront with a reader, as there becomes an implied contract.

I think this "contract" — often in the form of an Author's Note — is important in fact-based fiction. The reader needs to know where he or she stands.

Braver again:

Most of the unbelievable stuff is the real stuff. My imagination works best at seeping through the cracks, not in creating the larger than life structures.

That's often how I work.

Here's from Karen again:

It makes no sense, I know, but when I hear “historical fiction” I think of events/people further back in history than the ’60s. But I’d also have a hard time applying it to a book like yours with a more (pardon the term) postmodern structure. Can a thing be postmodern historical fiction? I don’t know. But I think I’m sticking with “literary documentary” when trying to describe your work in particular.

And so, a new genre is born: postmodern historical fiction. I love it.

stories + memories + facts = history

I've posted before about Adam Braver's novel, Nov 22, 1963. It's a novel about that day, the day President Kennedy was shot, but mostly it's a novel about Jackie Kennedy. It's beautifully, artfully, achingly spare: a work of art in words.

I'm excited about his participation on Readerville.com this week: click here if you're interested. I'm especially interested, because of that subject so dear to me (for obvious reasons): the intersection of fact and fiction.

To quote Braver:

One of the things that I’d been thinking about for the past couple of years is the equation: stories + memories + facts = history. This doesn’t necessarily have to apply to history as “the historical record,” but also to our family histories, personal histories, social histories, etc. From a writing standpoint, it was also about finding the somewhat artificial distinction between genres--namely fiction and nonfiction. When you deal with facts, memories, and stories, I’m not sure it’s possible that anything can be pure fiction or pure truth.

I love this:

I really wanted to write a book that consciously combined those elements: where the facts were facts, the stories were stories, and the memories were memories. Put them together in one space, yet let each one speak for itself.

And this:

I’ve always been attracted to books that allow the quiet moments to tell a bigger story, and, I suppose, I was trying to follow in that suit. It wasn’t a matter so much of sifting through so much information, and then whittling it down. It was that conscious/subconscious radar for finding the little yet moving details.

I sent the current draft of the plot off this morning for a writers' group meet this coming Friday, so I'll have some time to following this fascinating Braver dialogue.

Collecting books, collecting book lists

.
.
After my mother died, it was poignant and sad to look through the scraps of paper she kept in a drawer by her reading chair — notes of titles of interest, books to get. The writing becomes more frail with time, and in the last years of her life, she was unable to read at all.

Coming back to our home in Canada after being away all winter, I am struck by all my books — my wonderful research library, my To Be Read stack, nicely awaiting me by the bed — as well as by all my lists of books. Granted, much of this has to do with building a bibliography, seeking out all the possible titles available on whatever subject I'm writing about — but in truth, I recognize that I'm a collector of titles of books to read as well as of books. There are not enough hours remaining in my life to do justice to even a small fraction of them (I'd better begin a short list), but that doesn't seem to matter.

And all this to say: I read an article on Readerville Journal this morning which lists novels about travels into Mexico. I want to note it somehow, but I resist the urge to print it out — and so: here it is.