7. The Misunderstood and Often Abused Black Sheep of 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).***
Part of the problem of categorizing and defining creative nonfiction and understanding the Truths available within the genre have to do with its initiation into the literary lexicon. One of creative nonfiction’s pet names is “the fourth genre”; this because some in the writing industry count genres as fiction (one), nonfiction (two) and poetry (three). It is a shame that so many artists within nonfiction accept this third-cousin-twice-removed categorization and ranking within literature. It is as if those gatekeeping the halls of what is considered nonfiction wanted nothing to do with creativity; as if it is too different and wily; as if it were kicked out of the family as a black sheep. Creative nonfiction is still nonfiction. It simply has termed a distinction separating it from journalism’s strict nonfiction form and yet it still dwells in the house of nonfiction’s factual truths. The only difference is that creative nonfiction breaks a mold that was broken as early as Montaigne’s first attempt.
A special note on journalism and ethics: Some deny the validity of memoir as truthful nonfiction because it often does not stand up to journalistic ethics. Sometimes, like journalism, memoir and other creative nonfiction pieces will include other real-life people, or their behaviors, other actual events, or happenings from the historical record. Some writers have gotten a few small details, here or there, wrong and other writers have told huge, all-out whoppers.
Because of journalism’s heavy organizational authority and standard practice — journalism is even protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — its reputation as trustworthy should not be sullied in the debate on truth in creative nonfiction, nor should it be granted “creative freedoms.” After all, journalism has its own controversial issues to attend to.
In The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcolm, a famous well-respected journalist, examined the ethical dilemmas prevalent for Joe McGinniss during his journalistic relationship with a convicted murderer, Jeffrey MacDonald. Journalism holds that subjects of the press should be made aware of any bias or perspective the reporter is aware of. However, McGinniss never told MacDonald he disbelieved him, and this omission lulled MacDonald into a defenseless poster thinking McGinnis was on his side (Malcolm).
Many writers, Malcolm included, feel that McGinnis was wrong to pump MacDonald for information using false pretenses. Industry professionals, and writers and readers, alike, would be wrong to hold memoirists or creative writers to this same standard. Because we write about our lives as we live them, these sort of upfront shenanigans and divulgences would layer actual life with artificiality and almost robotic relationship intimacy. And what kind of art would that create? Would it represent truth even though all instances would be recorded or every happening documented?
In Robert Boynton’s The New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft, Talese noted: “I believe that the editorial choices about what appears in newspapers and magazines are so subjective that you almost never get the whole truth. The editor’s fingerprints are on what he chooses to publish. The cast of characters in The Kingdom and the Power, if nothing else, shows you that there ain’t no such thing as ‘objective journalism.’ There is no such thing as absolute truth. Reporters can find anything they want to find. Every reporter brings the totality of his battle scars to the event. A reporter never gets it. He gets what he is capable of getting, what he wants to get” (377).
In the same collection, Ted Conover, confuses the elements of creative nonfiction with those of journalism and does both genres a serious disservice: “I am a pretty straightforward, nuts-and-bolts guy when it comes to journalism. Either something happened, or it didn’t. I have a contract with my readers according to which they can expect my material to be true, and I honor that. I believe in literal truth of nonfiction, as opposed to the philosophical truth of fiction. I think re-created dialogue is one of the biggest, most persistent problems of ‘creative nonfiction.’ Everything in my books is true, and yet dialogue is so difficult to record verbatim that it is a big gray area. And add to that gray area the fact that journalistic convention requires that dialogue be rendered intelligibly — edited, essentially — and the question of what ‘true’ ‘creative nonfiction’ really means gets even more difficult” (Boynton 28).
It only becomes “difficult” because he inappropriately judged creative nonfiction with journalistic standards. This sort of behavior is akin to judging a newspaper article with the same criteria one would use to judge a poem. Creative nonfiction and journalism are two distinct writing and research styles, though they are housed within the same genre (nonfiction). Conover could certify his work as true for his readers without marrying creative nonfiction to journalism’s standards.
Matters of form also shape the art of and the confusion around creative nonfiction. Because the creativity available within the genre allows for so much imitation, replication and transformation — the only stipulation being the story, opinion or ideas are true — the genre itself is as boundless as fiction, with the only difference that readers feel a bit more intimate with the writer of nonfiction. However, because artists progress and grow, the form itself has begun to take on more and more modern and post-modern artistic elements.
For instance, in Lauren Slater’s book Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, the author proposes that she has written a memoir; however, she informs the reader that the story she is telling may or may not be true, she may or may not be diagnosed with epilepsy; and she plays expertly with form. In one section of the book, on page 59, she ends a chapter with “THE END” though no other chapters end this way. Turn the page and the discussion continues with “Not quite.” followed by an additional paragraph detailing events. In Chapter 7, she addresses How To Market This Book and represents this chapter as a memo to her editor where she acknowledges the difficulty in categorizing her material, “We have to call it fiction or we have to call it fact, because there’s no bookstore term for something in between, gray matter” (159).
While it may have been a more straightforward book had Slater acknowledged truth versus imagination in her “memoir,” truth was obviously not her major point. Like many post-modern writers she wanted to offer a more vertiginous experience to her readers. She appeared to want a discussion and thought, rather than a conclusion or straight-up confession. In her art, she seemed to want to inspire thought that was slightly different than just learning about how to overcome epilepsy.
Shields induced his brand of writerly vertigo when he produced Reality Hunger with no citations (actually he very reluctantly added citations and implores readers of his book to cut them out). He presented his ideas on overarching subjects within the nonfiction realm (chapters titled as Memory, Reality, and Trials by Google). The book is made up of 618 sections of Shields’s and other writers’ quotes, ideas, and thoughts on those overarching themes. The book is significant because of the conversation it forces readers to have about truth and honesty in nonfiction, leaving no real answer or foothold to base opinion on.
***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).***
