Yet More on the Dotted Line

I've written earlier posts on the idea that there is a dotted line between fact and fiction, not because I want to suggest that non-fiction is fundamentally flawed. Like almost everything else in life, it has its shortcomings from time to time, but as a former journalist I'm inclined to believe what I read in credible publications unless I have strong reasons to suspect it isn't correct.

As someone who now dabbles in fiction, it is the other side of the line that is more interesting to me: how should fact be used in fiction?  I will have more to say about that in another positing, but for the moment, I want to call readers' attention to a quote in a recent "Bookends" feature in the Sunday "New York Times" Book Review section.