The One With Creative Nonfiction
This month's theme is Creative Nonfiction and of course it's another semi-bizarre hodge-podge of titles, none exactly new, but representative of what has been preoccupying the thoughts of one particular writer and teacher, mainly of fiction but also -- aspirationally -- nonfiction, with whom you happen to be acquainted.
Random CNF Title #1 -- Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu by Bernard B. Fall, 1966. As a historical writer, I'm very often thinking about the past and preparing to write something about it.
But as a literary writer, I'm suspicious of this desire to depart very far from the present and the part of history I can personally claim as mine. So this title covers both bases. I've read a lot about this battle and this book is considered by at least one Vietnam expert (Michael Herr) to be the best ever written. This event happened in Southeast Asia in 1954 and it didn't even happen to Americans (the troops under siege were French) and yet it wrote much of the US history that occurred in the second half of the 20th Century. In the early 50s, the French tried to gain a military foothold in Southeast Asia, both for imperialistic reasons and to oppose the advance of Communism. But they got beaten very badly by an enemy they could not manage to find and whose supply lines could not be broken.
What happened at Dien Bien Phu forced the French to give up. So then the US decided to try and the same thing happened. This book -- which appeared too late to stop us and probably wouldn't have, anyway -- helps explain why.
Random CNF Title #2 -- Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley, 2005. Smiley wrote this book for lots of reasons, but one in particular that spoke to me was her concern she "had outlived the life span" of her novel-writing career. So she decided to read 100 novels and then see if the experience enlightened her about novel-writing in a way that enabled her to say useful things to her readers about the novel, writing novels and being a novelist -- and maybe after that, she might write another novel.
Which is not completely unrelated to the reason I decided a few years back to write 100 recommendations of 100 books in 100 days (I failed: It took 120ish days) and publish them on Bookbub and share them on Facebook and Twitter, an experience out of which was born this monthly newsletter. Smiley's book contains ways to think about the novel that you've maybe never considered and might help you to write yours. She says things like "to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness." She says "the subject of any novel comes to be the coexistence of the protagonist and his group." She says "Length adds complexity, enhances enjoyment, and at the same time promotes persuasion."
So if you have an idea for a book, but it's so outlandish you think nobody will believe it, Smiley would likely say the novel exists to give you the room to persuade the reader that your story matters and, though it consists mostly of lies, is nonetheless true.
Random CNF Title #3 -- My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread and the Search for Peace of Mind by Scott Stossel, 2013. If you have an anxiety disorder, as I do, then this is a good title for you, particularly if your disorder happens to attack your stomach, as mine did before I discovered visualization as a coping mechanism.
Stossel is a nephew of news correspondent John Stossel, and is the national editor of The Atlantic, and did some good research into the history of anxiety disorders in order to write this book about his own. It turns out Charles Darwin had legendary digestive problems -- vomiting and diarrhea that went on for days at a time -- that were likely the result of an anxiety disorder, for which he was treated, mostly unsuccessfully, throughout his life. Stossel has slowly gotten better. He manages, though does not use the word "cured," and neither can I. He says "anything I've accomplished has been accompanied by constant worry and frequent panic and has been punctuated by moments of near-complete breakdown . . . ."
Well-meaning people in his life insist he exaggerates his handicaps and failings and ought to give himself more credit. That probably goes for all of us.
Random CNF Title #4 -- Reflexion by Lynette Fromme, 2018. Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme got out of prison in 2009 and Charles Manson died in prison in 2017. Several Manson family members have been released over the years, and a number have penned memoirs or produced one with a ghostwriter. There are varied opinions on Manson depending on who you ask, but the consistent verdict on Charlie is negative with a side of betrayal and outrage. Then there's Lynette Fromme.
In this remarkably eloquent memoir, Fromme says she never bought into the mythos about Charlie, never saw him as a megalomaniacal brainwasher or cult programmer or Second Coming of Christ -- and adds that Charlie never believed that nonsense either. She suggests that Charlie may've had two personalities and each was unaware of the existence of the other. She does not subscribe to the theory that the murders were payback against members of the music industry who refused to make Charlie a recording artist, because she happens to know that Charlie had no desire to sign himself over to any record company. She says everyone was in charge of what the family did, and also nobody was.
She doesn't believe Charlie ever caused anyone to do anything they didn't already want to do. But she wasn't present on either night of the killing spree and that's another thing that makes this memoir quite different from the others.
This month, I'm touting the aqua-mentary Girls Can't Surf because of all the great surfing footage and the cringe-worthy and now laughable interviews with pro male surfers of the Sixties and Seventies explaining why women do not belong on the competitive surfing circuit and why they shouldn't receive equal pay.
For any new readers: My new novel, Tania the Revolutionary, is available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback or Barnes & Noble for eBook.