2. The State of Bullshit in Creative Nonfiction
***This is work from an 8-part series (Truth, Lies & Bullshit in the Art of Creative Nonfiction): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Works Cited (includes intro and sections).***
Indeed, based on many of D’Agata’s responses to Fingal, the facts (or truths) as he presents them are manipulated “to suit his purpose” and his motivation seemed to be getting the essay published with minimal revision even though he became aware that many of his facts were wrong. Based on Frankfurt’s definition, D’Agata and writers like him write bullshit.
Lifespan depicts him as a hot-tempered nonfiction author with very creative and convenient reasonings to not revise a faulty work. Because D’Agata uses his author platform to not only produce an inaccurate work of history (he presents a flawed essay on a historical event without shedding light on its inaccuracies) he influences the public record in err and in full awareness of his errors; in this he performs a disservice to nonfiction theory by making manipulative but seemingly valid arguments about what he has artistically done.
Jennifer B. McDonald, an editor for the The New York Times sardonically reported that “[D’Agata’s] duty is to Truth. And when an artist works in service of Truth, fidelity to fact is irrelevant. So too is any sense of professional decency, it seems…. D’Agata accuses Fingal of ‘ruining this essay’ with ‘nit-picking.’ He repeatedly calls Fingal ‘stupid’ (and worse). It’s telling that in the heat of battle D’Agata resorts to playground taunts. When a dirty fighter realizes he has no legs left, he aims low” (2). D’Agata is not the only creative nonfiction writer to “aim low” when confronted with the uncomfortable consequences of truth-manipulations or weak arguments about Truth and the inherent difference between fiction and nonfiction.
Charles Blackstone, in his introduction to The Art of Friction: Where [Non]fictions Come Together, bullshits us in response to the genuine question of categorization when writing prose; after “maintain[ing] that [fiction and nonfiction characters] do and don’t exist in equal proportion,” he ends his provocative argument with a zero conclusion and some vulgarity: “I think that whether the story is putatively ‘fiction’ or ‘creative nonfiction,’ whatever those terms actually mean, the same thing is going on in both worlds…. Writers have agendas. Readers have agendas. I don’t give a shit about either” (13, 16). Blackstone goes on to say, “So instead of creating more trouble for each other by claiming there are profound differences between fiction and creative nonfiction, let’s just shut up and write” (17).
I cannot help but notice how inelegant his otherwise intelligent conversation became once he was confronted with the difficulty of definitions and categorizations. He edited an entire book based on the friction created between fiction and nonfiction techniques and theories, yet as early as the introduction he was confounded and resorted to cursing and “just write.”
Other bullshitters, like Bernard Cooper, are not as harsh but just as unapologetic about not defining fiction and nonfiction, and even merging them on the page. Bernard says, regarding his essay, 101 Ways to Cook A Hamburger, that “[he] makes no apologies for fictions that are woven through [his nonfiction] work”; further stating that “these fictions bring [him] closer to, rather than farther away from, the truth” (Blackstone 61). Like D’Agata, Cooper is willing to make up scenes or facts to push his ‘nonfiction’ narrative further. He insists on marketing his work within the creative nonfiction genre, and actually stated that he weaves willful fabrications into his “nonfiction” work. He admits that he thinks of creative nonfiction “in the broadest possible terms” and confesses that he sometimes makes up facts (59). Also, Cooper chooses to call his fiction nonfiction because it contains some important facts of his life, even though he has also fabricated other important details presented as factually true. Neither of these authors inform their readers upfront that some details are made up. Their work depends on a naive reader; one okay with being duped; one who reads nonfiction for the philosophical “higher Truth” of it all. These readers must surely be few and far between.
Fiction writers like, Peter Michelson, stake claims on creative nonfiction in their works by stating that the events they wrote and marketed as truth “could have happened.” In the author commentary associated with Tagore to the Max, Michelson notes that he did not write a “truthful account.” He wrote a fiction piece using a nonfiction style of essay structure and narrated what would have happened had two poets met. His commentary for this essay highlighted that he wrote the essay because he had invitation to do “something” and he had collected a lot of information about one of the poets. Michelson reconciles his fiction by stating: “But I will say that if this encounter did not happen altogether as reported, it could have happened” (Blackstone 121).
These types of reasonings by authors that refuse to do the difficult work of telling factual truths to the best of their abilities are adults that pretend they have forgotten what “truth” means. Would we accept obvious fabrications as “nonfiction” if we asked a child for the truth and she began to dance around with “it could have happened!” Nonsense. Michelson wrote a fictional piece, as an industry standard no writer should pretend or market fiction as fact. He simply wrote a fiction in an essay style, but it is not creative nonfiction. It is still fiction.
I propose that because of the controversies defining Truth in creative nonfiction, writers like D’Agata, Blackstone and Cooper are usually considered valuable contributors to the discussion. However, they simply note themselves to be mediocre creative nonfiction writers when comparing their lackadaisical habits to the tight, focused, and ethical writerly techniques of great writers like Gay Talese.
In his interviewed annotation of his famous essay Frank Sinatra Has A Cold, Talese noted the careful planning, writing and use of flashback he employed in order to make another essay, The Kingdom and The Power, work as truthful nonfiction: “…it’s a device I use often. You can find that in the Turner Catledge section of The Kingdom and the Power. There’s a flashback to the Civil War. Why? Because Turner Catledge had a grandfather who fought with Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Klan. The surname of the grandfather on his mother’s side was Turner. I go from there to how the Times covered the Civil War. All that’s flashback, all because of one factual connection between Turner Catledge, who was overseeing the Times’ coverage of the Civil Rights movement of 1964 or ’65, including the march on Selma. That’s where creative nonfiction comes in. If you know your material so well, you can control it, like a bunch of circus animals. They jump through the hoop” (Green).
***This is work from an 8-part series (Truth, Lies & Bullshit in the Art of Creative Nonfiction): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Works Cited (includes intro and sections).***
