Fact and Fiction: More About The Dotted Line

The June 20, 2015, "New York Times" carried a lengthy obituary on James Salter, depicted as one of America's most under-appreciated recent novelists and writer of short stories.  The piece is interesting in a couple of respects, but I just want to touch on one of them here.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the dotted line between fact and fiction, which, as a commentator subsequently noted, is not necessarily a problem when fiction makes use of fact, but deceptive when something purporting to be non-fiction is actually made up.


I say "not necessarily" a problem in the first instance because when a writer creates a fictional character out of a living person, the person doesn't always appreciate the depiction. My first example was James Joyce basing  Buck Mulligan, in "Ulysses," on Oliver St. John Gogarty, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship. Gorgarty was reportedly alternatively bemused and annoyed by the depiction, which others who knew him have claimed was inaccurate in several respects and as a result, has distorted his not inconsiderable legacy.

Other writers have been sued for making too obvious use of a real person.

What about Salter?

At one point in his life, he published a book called "Burning the Days," about which Helen E. Verongos, the writer of the "New York Times" obit says: "though autobiographical in style and substance, it is almost undistinguishable from his stories, in keeping with Mr. Salter's often-stated refusal to believe in the 'arbitrary separation' between fact and fiction."

While some reviewers praised the book's lyricism,others claimed it showed a lack of self awareness and omitted too much, Verongos said.  In others words, while it may have been fact rather than fiction, it wasn't factual enough.

The reason I'm writing about this topic is because I am the sort of writer who starts from real life observations or experiences and builds fiction on such a  framework. Much of what is described in the one work that I have so far published, "Manhattan Morning," is based on a walk I took in New York. While much in my story is made up, some -- snatches of conversation on the street, what certain people looked like or how they behaved -- isn't.

I think the mixture creates an environment in which readers can more easily identify with my characters, but others may disagree.