Nonfiction engages entertaining realities

With all of the buzz surrounding new fiction releases such as Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and upcoming titles such as Dan Brown’s Inferno, it’s easy to lose track of another important facet of the literary world: nonfiction.

Though debates about the values of nonfiction and fiction have yielded no concrete results — it’s nearly impossible to tell which genre is more popular — it’s undeniable that nonfiction makes up a significant chunk of modern literature.

The start of this year alone has seen the likes of Maya Angelou’s Mom & Me & Mom, Debbie Reynolds’ Unsinkable: A Memoir and Sheryl Sandberg’s controversial book on women in the workplace, Lean In. If you’re perusing Barnes & Noble’s latest or just walking down the terminal at LAX, you’re sure to find an author’s moody face leering down at you from the shelves.

Admittedly, discussing nonfiction as a single genre is nearly impossible. Just as fiction harbors subcategories such as romance, fantasy and science fiction, the term “nonfiction” can be applied to anything ranging from biography to travel writing to self-help — and sometimes, the lines can get somewhat muddled.

But no matter what nonfiction titles catch our attention, there’s no denying that there’s something inherently intriguing about getting the so-called “truth” of an author’s story. Somehow, when we’re reading heartbreaking tales of failed marriages, criminal proceedings and controversial science experiments, we take particular pleasure in knowing that the writer has experienced these occurrences firsthand.

Just take a look at James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces fiasco. Frey’s memoir supposedly told the true story of his drug addiction and subsequent struggle for rehabilitation — until an extensive investigative article by The Smoking Gun revealed that the memoir contained more fiction than fact. By the time the news broke that Frey had dramatized some components of the story, such as the length of time he was in jail and the nature of a fellow addict’s suicide, the book had already sold more than 3.5 million copies and landed a spot on The New York Times bestseller list. Supposedly, Frey labeled the story as “nonfiction” in order to find a publisher.

“I think one of the coping mechanisms I developed was sort of this image of myself that was … greater than what I actually was,” said Frey in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. “In order to get through the experience of the addiction, I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was — and it helped me cope.”

Still, despite Frey’s rationale, the reaction to the deception was explosive. Fans demanded refunds. Oprah grilled Frey on national television. Major booksellers re-shelved the book as fiction. The literary community quickly faced the question: How are we supposed to treat nonfiction?

“I wanted the stories in the book to ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension that all great stories require,” Frey said in the “note to the reader” that was published in later editions of A Million Little Pieces. “I altered events and details all the way through the book.”

The debacle surrounding A Million Little Pieces has since died down, but Frey’s name, unfortunately, is still synonymous with “liar” in the literary world. Still, why do we assume that a story has to be “true” in order to be authentic?

Perhaps it’s because we enjoy knowing that our own lives still contain an element of drama — even without an author’s fictional embellishments. Elizabeth Gilbert’s quest for inner peace in Eat, Pray, Love solidified her standing as one of the greatest contemporary American writers and earned a 2010 theatrical release starring Julia Roberts. Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs shot to the top of bestseller lists as it offered readers a snapshot into the life of the head of Apple Inc. Angelou has published six autobiographies, all of which met with fantastic critical success.

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper,” writes Angelou in her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. “It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”

Apparently, it’s better if that “deeper shade of meaning” is also grounded in reality.

But there’s also another element behind our fascination with nonfiction: Sometimes even our imaginations fail us when it comes to documenting the horrors and triumphs of everyday life.

Rebecca Skloot, for example, shot to instant literary fame with her 2010 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The book, which falls into the biography and bioethics categories, explores the mystery behind Henrietta Lacks. Lacks’ cancer cells were taken without her permission in 1951 and used to make medical breakthroughs in leukemia, Parkinson’s disease and hemophilia, among other diseases. Before Skloot’s investigative work, however, very little was known about Henrietta’s life.

Skloot, who will be giving a lecture on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks today at 4 p.m. at the Health Sciences Campus’ Mayer Auditorium, attributes most of the book’s success to the miracle of Henrietta’s narrative.

“I think people are reacting to the book the way I reacted to the story,” said Skloot in an interview with The Oregonian. “I think a lot of it is the power of the story.”

Knowing that there are so many stories that haven’t been told intrigues us. For whatever reason, we enjoy reading about the daring exploits of our human heroes or the striking untold narrative of a woman who just happened to need a pelvic exam.

Nonfiction, it seems, still captivates us — even without the brilliance of an author’s imagined world.

 

Carrie Ruth Moore is a sophomore majoring in English. Her column “Cover to Cover” runs Thursdays.