I don’t remember now where I read it, but I just recently read somewhere a comment on the memoirs of two famous people of the past. It seems that one “invented” a boat that didn’t really exist, while the other left out any mention of numerous sexual affairs he had had.
One was an error of comission, the other an error of omission—if indeed either one can fairly be called an “error,” since both were deliberate—but in both cases, the authors were somewhat less than truthful.
When a book is labelled “nonfictiion,” most folks expect it to be factual. But that isn’t always the case.
Now, of course, there are all kinds of nonfiction, including how-tos, which provide instruction but not necessarily facts—although if such a book presents statistics to bolster the author’s advice, the stats should certainly be neither made up nor fudged. (That the stats in some books are cherry-picked is a different issue altogether.)
Then there are essays, which are often, though not always, thought pieces. Here we may have opinions, and the author is certainly entitled to his/her own opinions, although again, if these opinions are based on facts, events, or statistics, readers certainly expect the author to have his/her facts straight. Essays may also convey reminiscences, and here we get into the territory mainly covered by autobiographies and memoirs—such as were the topic of the piece I recently read.
Autobios, bios, and memoirs are expected to present, as DRAGNET was famous for saying, “Just the facts, ma’am.” Or as the oath taken in court goes, “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Of course we all forgive the author whose memory is hazy on a minor point: He fell out of an apple tree as a child, not a maple as he remembers it. Her cat died when she was seven, not nine as she remembers it. But we don’t expect an author to make up a story out of whole cloth and present it as truth, nor do we expect him or her to omit an important fact and thus distort the reality of the story.
Then there are other kinds of nonfiction, like true-life drama. Here we often see the truth augmented with conjured-up details. When, for example, an author is writing a true crime drama and says something like, “The killer stealthily crept up the fire escape toward the open window, gripping the handrails tightly, trying to stay calm but feeling his heart thump wildly,” we know, if we stop to think about it, that the author must have invented or at least surmised some of the details. Surely the author wasn’t there on the fire escape to see the killer gripping the handrails tightly. Surely the author didn’t hear the killer’s heart thumping wildly—nor was the killer wearing a heart monitor that transmitted his heartbeat to medical personnel. The author augmented the truth with imagined or surmised detail to bring the story more vividly to life.
Is it still truth? Is it still nonfiction?
I think most readers, if they stop and think about it, realize that the author must have, in such cases, surmised some of the “facts.” I think it’s an accepted convention, an unspoken understanding between author and reader, that some of what is presented as “nonfiction” isn’t 100 percent known fact.
But you might disagree.
Then let’s get back to memoirs and bios/autobios. Surely we don’t expect a writer to tell his/her story in toto from the day he/she or his/her subject was born. Such a book would take volumes to write, challenge the author’s recall (or knowledge of his/her subject if the subject is someone other than himself/herself), and bore the reader half to death. But we don’t expect the author to omit important facts or details, either. Is it EVER acceptable to omit a salient fact? If so, when?
I do not presume to supply answers to the questions I have posed. I would rather leave them hanging for you to ponder.
What’s your opinion, as a reader? What are your thoughts?