NONFICTION NOVELS, FICTIONAL MEMOIRS, and CREATIVE NONFICTION
The whole question of defining each of these terms and setting their place in history could occupy a thesis writer, and it is not the place of this list to delve too deeply into the differences among these terms. That being said, I have listed below some snippets on each, with suggested reading lists. If two people were to look at the lists, a discussion could immediately ensue, suggesting that title x in list y actually belongs in list z and so on! So, be forewarned that it’s a muddy field, definitely not cast in stone, and confusion may reign supreme.
Nonfiction Novels
Truman Capote, creator of the “nonfiction novel,” has this to say about it: “It seemed to me that journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art form: the "nonfiction novel," as I thought of it….I proposed a narrative form that employed all the techniques of fictional art but was nevertheless immaculately factual.” He distinguishes the nonfiction novel from the documentary novel in that the latter plays with the facts, and is not so literary as the nonfiction novel. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/28/home/capote-interview.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. The lines of distinction between creative nonfiction and the nonfiction novel are blurry, as seen in this article by Aaron Pope, ”Lines in the Mud: Exploring Creative Non-fiction.” http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/eng315/textbook/pope.htm
Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood
Didion, Joan. Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Harrison, Keith. Furry Creek (from the back-of-the-book blurb:"Furry Creek uses documents and made-up lives to narrate the art, life and violent death of poet Pat Lowther.")
Mailer, Norman. The Armies of the Night
Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief
Plimpton, George. Paper Lion
Talese, Gay. The Overreachers
Thompson, Hunter S. The Curse of Lono
Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Fictional Memoirs
These are generally stories of events in people’s lives, but with enough fiction, or enough fictional technique that the author has decided to refer to them as fictional memoirs, in order to avoid the issue of “truth in memoir.” Sometimes, however, a writer will create a story about another person, using fact as basis, but describe it as a fictional memoir, as in Jaycee Aniagolu-Johnson’s Mikela: Memoirs of a Maasai Woman.” And finally, as in Michael Winter’s This All Happened: A Fictional Memoir, the writer has written a novel about characters featured in other fictional works (short stories and novels) and labelled it as a memoir.
Exley, Frederick. A Fan’s Notes: A Fictional Memoir.
Hemingway, Ernest. True at First Light: A Fictional Memoir
Limonov, Edouard. It’s Me, Eddie: A Fictional Memoir
Sassoon, Siegfried. The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston
Slater, Lauren. Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (or is this an outright hoax?)
Ward, Robert. Grace: A Fictional Memoir
Creative Nonfiction, also often referred to as Narrative Nonfiction
“What exactly is Narrative Nonfiction? While looking for a concise definition for the term I found this blurb from an article in Booklist's September 2003 issue: "Narrative nonfiction is the new name for what used to be called the nonfiction novel, but it has evolved a bit from Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966), which was clearly structured like a novel, to any of a variety of nonfiction accounts that employ a storytelling style."
Another more writerly definition from scribe Edward Humes' website, "Somewhere between the newspaper on your doorstep and the novel on your nightstand lies narrative nonfiction, literary journalism — the nonfiction novel."”
And let’s not forget the hoaxes: Grey Owl, Nasdiij, Benjamin Wilkomirski, Jimmy Lerner, Norma Khouri, JT LeRoy, to name but a few…
Maureen O'Connor
WordsWorthy
Connecting Books and Readers
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