Jack Shafer joins in the chorus of criticism against David Sedaris for embellishing aspects of his non-fiction:
Sedaris and company want to erect a penumbra that shields humorists from criticism when they blend fiction into their nonfiction but still insist on calling it nonfiction. The logic behind this is difficult to follow. If writing fiction is the license Sedaris and other nonfiction humorists need to get at “larger truths,” why limit this exemption to humorists? Let reporters covering city hall, war, and business to embellish and exaggerate so they can capture “larger truths,” too.
As editor of a popular online magazine, I recognize Shafer may be wary of fabricated non-fiction. But there’s a difference between embellishing situations in a humorous personal memoir and publishing an article about a guy who fishes for monkeys.
Reporters “covering city hall, war, and business” are writing as means of delivering factual information to their readers; they traffic in facts and we read their work (hopefully with a healthy dose of skepticism) in order to draw our own conclusions about the state of the world.
The writers of personal memoirs, on the other hand, present the conclusions up front, trafficking in something greater than the mere sum of the real-life minutia of their lives. It doesn’t matter to me if Sedaris’s brother never really referred to himself as The Rooster; I’m ok with some slight embellishment so long as it allows Sedaris to write, “Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can’t kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I’m saying?”
If the writing’s good, then, fuck it, it doesn’t much matter where it came from, I’m just happy it’s out there. You know what I’m saying?
Memoirs don’t deliver facts, they deliver something much bigger: personal truth and stories of life that are consumed more like fiction than like dry news. Sure, memoirs may be popular because readers feel a closer connection to stuff that actually happened to someone else. But all great memoirists, from Sedaris back to Mark Twain, are really just great story tellers. And, as anyone who has ever told a story to anyone else will know, you gotta editorialize just a bit, otherwise it’s just not worth telling.
I’d like to think most readers of personal non-fiction are savvy enough to be satisfied with that.
on 12 Apr 2007 at 1:29 am # mikey mike mike
there’s big difference between some asshole who pretends to be objective and unbiased in a news report or any other kind of journalistic endeavor, and someone who is self-consciously fictionalizing their memoir. to acknowledge that the author’s perspective distorts so-called “truth” is much more honest than being allegedly “objective” in a supposedly non-fictional, factual account.
Jack Shafer et al. is obviously a straight-ass white homophobe. otherwhise, he wouldn’t give a shit.
on 13 Apr 2007 at 3:30 pm # The Daily Squid » BLOGS AND “AUTHORITY”
[...] The public is a lot more savvy with what they read than we’re often given credit for (as discussed recently) and our increasing skepticism amid a growing cacophony of voices only aids the savvy-ness, providing for a better informed populace, more dicerning. [...]