Abigail Mechley

Intro to Lit & Cultural Studies

ENG 298
Spring 2017

Where Truth Lies: How Authors and Readers Construct Truth in Nonfiction

“Am I telling the truth?” Sherman Alexie asked. He stood at the front of a lecture hall full

of Miami University students, faculty, and members of the community. “For the purposes of this

story, I am.” Amidst a two hour speech in which Alexie spoke about early life on a Washington

reservation, discussed his experience writing The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,

and good-naturedly joked about romance and race relations, he made a point repeatedly to draw

attention toward the nebulous quality of “truth,” even in claims he made about his own life. Even

the title of his award-winning (and controversial) novel The Absolutely True Diary is a

misnomer; while Alexie did draw from his own experiences, the work is only semi-

autobiographical, and there’s not much to distinguish where fact is threaded into fiction.

Is the author responsible for conveying the truth as it objectively exists, and would such

an objective truth even have the capacity to exist in writing? Is the reader’s experience with the

text, never mind the author, in charge of how and where “truth” can exist within the work? And

what of the ambiguity of intent and subjectivity? There is no easy answer.

The nature of truth, both in reality and writing, is a fickle thing, and reaching conclusions

about who can or should dictate what is true and what is not has clearly contributed to arguments

such as Roland Barthe’s “Death of the Author,” Wolfgang Iser’s reader response theory, and my

own writing on Lucy Grealy’s authorial role in Autobiography of a Face. What is truth? What is

interpretation? These questions relate in particular to nonfiction as a genre, which seems

altogether opposed to truth-twisting. I hope to clarify the different approaches authors and

readers take when approaching a nonfiction work, and how these change (and are changed by)

“truth.”
 But truth, as an aspect of writing and experience, can be hard to define. Normally, it’s

taken to mean an objective observation about reality, one that works in service to illuminating

facts in an honest way. But critics of nonfiction have argued that sticking to the facts may

obscure broader truths. Sophie Cunningham, in “‘A Failure of the Imagination’? The Fiction vs.

Nonfiction Debate,” argues that “[fiction] offers creative freedoms that allow authors to reach

truths that nonfiction writer’s, constrained by literal adherence to facts, cannot always find”

(111). This implies a different view of truth, one that focuses more strongly on higher ideals and

realizations—such as justice and beauty—than what can be written about the world as it is. Here,

facts hold the author back. Likewise, Michelle Herman, who wrote “Truth, Truthiness, Memory,

and Bald-Faced Lies—And the Pleasures of Uncertainty,” adds that she had never understood the

appeal of writing nonfiction: “I couldn’t understand—I would say, whenever I had the

opportunity—why any writer would want to be ‘shacked to the truth’: why he’d want to waste all

that good material that might be made use of in a story” (79). In fiction, there is greater

flexibility to draw together fact and imagination in such a way as to create something that, in

Herman’s words, “feels real” (84) without having to represent actual reality.

There are even potential ethical limitations to writing (or labeling a work as) nonfiction;

Cunningham points out, “the shit always hits the fan when the subjects of the biography read the

manuscript and dispute the approach taken by the biographer.” When the person being written

about is unhappy with their portrayal, it can create a dilemma for whether to include certain

unsavory details that, nonetheless, represent who they are. But this can also cause issues when a

person’s name or identity is tied to a character who is an exaggeration or imagined variant of

themselves. In “Never Let the Truth Stand in the Way of a Good Story: A Work for Three

Voices,” Bronwyn T. Williams argues, “If a person’s thoughts or actions or words were
fabricated, or even if the person was simply misquoted, people would regard what they read as

the truth” (292), which can wreak havoc on the perception others have about this individual. In

recounting his early years as a writer, he proposes that he viewed fiction as a way of protecting

those whose experiences you may draw upon within a story; “By fabricating your own stories,

though, you avoided issues of credibility with your audience. And you avoided hurting those

people you represented in your writing. Or so I thought” (295). For Williams, it’s not simply that

fiction offers greater flexibility to write about truth, it’s that nonfiction is frequently tied to a

truth that doesn’t belong to the writer alone—a truth that could create harm to those personally

involved.

But nonfiction is even more complex in what truth it might or could express. Lucy Grealy

in Autobiography of a Face considers the role of language in defining truth: “Language supplies

us with ways to express even subtler levels of meaning, but does that imply language gives

meaning, or robs us of it when we are at a loss to name things?” (33). If nonfiction fails to

convey meaning, if a writer chooses some words over others, then perhaps language itself limits

the ability of the writer to convey truth. Though Cunningham portrays nonfiction as “constrained

by literal adherence to facts” (111), she paradoxically contends that neither nonfiction nor fiction

can be objective portrayals of truth, saying “The imagination is rebellious… Any story is

overhearing, mishearing, and pushing facts into and out of shape. It inevitably transcends the

limits of realism” (110). It is true that memory and perception are each flawed; studies such as

“The Formation of False Memories” (by Elizabeth Loftus and Jacqueline Pickus) show that it is

not as difficult as once believed to internalize a false memory, and we are each limited to our

individual consciousness, experience, and bias.

 Writing nonfiction at all, from these understandings, seems like a contradictory process;

on the one hand, nonfiction as a genre expects facts from writers, both because it is one of the

primary distinctions between fiction and nonfiction, and because facts are meant to protect those

whose identities are also recorded in the work. On the other hand, the human mind is imperfect

and imprecise, which means that even the attempt to record the “truth” can introduce bias or

falsehoods into the narrative. Yet, so long as it is practiced ethically, the uncertainty within

nonfiction may be part of what makes it so compelling to write in contrast to fiction. Herman,

who had dismissed nonfiction as “shacked to the truth” (79), was surprised when “writing it was

hugely liberating” (80) because there was no need to guess at what “felt” right, as she had to do

when writing fiction. As she continued moving between fiction and nonfiction writing, she

realized that fiction (or at least, fiction tied to a specific, real-life thing) is actually more rigid on

“truth” than nonfiction; nonfiction, she argues, “offers another kind of freedom: the freedom to

not know for sure, and to say so” (90), uncertainty that suspension of disbelief in fiction can’t

allow. Nonfiction, then, can be uncertain; it can acknowledge where memory is failing; it can

recognize the author’s own bias and misconceptions; and it can accomplish all this while still

remaining true to the facts that form the core of the narrative.

As I have discussed in a previous essay (“Authorship and Intent: Why Lucy Grealy

Matters to Autobiography of a Face”), Grealy struggles to convey her own truth and to

understand accurately the truth that seems to exist for others. As she grows into a young writer,

however, she shifts her view away from language as limiting, and towards its ability to “be

wrought and shaped into vessels for the truth and beauty I had so long hungered for” (192). In

the autobiography itself, she does not shy away from the darker aspects of her life, and seems

intent on creating her own truth out of the experiences she lived through. Eric Heyne, in “Where
Fiction Meets Nonfiction,” contends that “There is no reason a story cannot be both powerful

and factual” (327). The accomplishments and failings portrayed within nonfiction are not

necessarily limitations simply because they are immutable facts; for being facts, their

significance may be even greater. Anne Frank’s diary would certainly not be as widely read and

praised had Frank herself not lived the life she had; an Australian fiction writer could

approximate her truth, perhaps, but Frank was the one who experienced it. As Williams writes,

“The nonfiction writer says to the reader, ‘Such things can happen, have happened, and as human

beings we must struggle to make meaning from them’” (296); there is a sense of impact in

nonfiction for it having been lived through that can make stories such as Frank’s and Grealy’s

carry greater narrative weight; there is even a sense of triumph in what Williams said, when

memoir and autobiographies so often comes from the standpoint of struggling and surviving.

Perhaps, in a different way, writers of semi-autobiographical accounts provide an

example of how truth can be reshaped, though the intentionality of doing so is difficult to define.

Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary seems to share many details with his life, at least as he presented

it during his speech. Alexie and the main character, Arnold Spirit, are both called “Junior” (for

the sake of discussion, I’ll be referring to Alexie as Alexie, and Spirit as Junior); both are born

with cerebral spinal fluid in their brains and required life-saving surgery; both are Spokane

Native Americans who transfer to a white school and adjust to life between cultures. But other

details can be hard to pin down to fact or fiction, and even that which is definitely untrue for

Alexie may convey truth in some other sense. This includes Junior’s skills in drawing comics;

but perhaps this stretching was used to make the book more accessible through pictures, and

more relatable by giving Junior a skill that helped him define and understand his own existence.
Alexie’s intentionality could be any number of things, but that doesn’t make the “truth”

conveyed any less meaningful.

Intent can even get mixed up within the author. Williams asks, “Have I ended this essay

this way because it makes me look like a good and moral and self-reflective writer, even as I

exploit my father’s pain and my mother’s grief? Am I being honest, or just finding a great twist

for the ending of this essay?” (303), displaying his uncertainty of whether his desire to seek one

truth has actually meant concealing less pure rationalizations.

Yet it is readers who engage with these texts, and perhaps it is their perspectives that

shape the nonfiction story most of all. I personally reject the full death of the author, particularly

in nonfiction, because the act of writing creative nonfiction seems to me much different than that

of writing fiction. I tend to place greater importance on who the writer is, especially in memoir

or personal nonfiction, because their identity is so deeply embedded in the story—I also

understand the full irony of doing so, since it is I as a reader who decides this, rather than the

author, but nonetheless the sense of honest expression from the writer is difficult to separate

from how I read nonfiction. Other readers may find engagement within nonfiction when they

find themselves trying to nail down truth. “One way to recognize the kind of narrative truth that

we associate with nonfiction,” Heyne says, “is by the presence of a certain kind of caring…

When we can talk about different stories competing, and when we genuinely wish to choose

among them rather than allowing them peacefully to coexist, then we have left the realm of

fiction” (330). Obviously this is not a fool-proof method for distinguishing the differences of

reading fiction and nonfiction—readers may choose to treat nonfiction exactly as they would

fiction, and vice-versa. But even if they choose to disengage from nonfiction as a “factual”
narrative (be it due to cynicism of the author’s record, or for any other reason), they are not fully

out of the work’s influence. Wayne Booth argues in “Who is Responsible for Ethical Criticism,

and for What?” that “even when we resist a story, even when we view it dispassionately, it

immerses us in ‘the thoughts of another,’ unless we simply stop listening” (353). Thought this

might seem a rigid view of reading, it truly is impossible to engage with a story without reading

within the structure of the text as laid out by the author.

That does not mean that the reader can’t or shouldn’t interpret the story how they would

like. Wolfgang Iser says in The Act of Reading that “the meaning of the literary work remains

related to what the printed text says, but it requires the creative imagination of the reader to put it

all together” (142). However, this “creative imagination” can prove problematic when the writer

does not anticipate how readers will construct their truth. For example, a writer may present

topics which would be interpreted as sarcasm or blatantly misleading by certain audiences, but

are taken literally by others. During his speech, Alexie noted, “Sometimes I feel like I have to

clarify things for you, because I’m a Native American and I know about Native Americans, and

some of you know a little bit, some of you may know a little more, but most of you don’t know

anything. So I could say anything I want—and you’d have to believe me.” By playing on the

lack of knowledge by his audience, Alexie is able to force misinterpretations by those in the

audience who are naïve or unwilling to question Alexie’s authority.

Williams is also concerned about how readers might go about interpreting the perspective

of a story when it’s connected to persons outside the author. He argues for a more nuanced view

of “truth” in nonfiction, especially given the frequent one-sidedness of the narrative. “Of

course,” he explains, “family stories belong to all members of a family. It is only the writer,

however, who gets to define those stories—even the stories that are true—in print for an
audience of strangers to see. It is only the writer who decides which stories that larger audience

‘deserves’ to hear” (299). An example of this situation occurred after the publication of

Autobiography of a Face, which became exacerbated in the wake of Lucy Grealy’s death. Sullen

Grealy, in “Hijacked by Grief,” discusses how Ann Patchett’s actions in writing about (and

profiting off of) Lucy’s death had altered the reception of Lucy’s original work, where Lucy’s

mother became “subject to the idle scrutiny of book clubs across America, invited by those

reading guides to judge her worth as a parent.” Even if it was Lucy’s story to tell—Lucy’s

struggles with beauty and truth—the frame of reference given to readers is incomplete and has

inadvertently influenced the propagation of untruths and misrepresentations of her mother. There

is no way to plan ahead for how the truth of a story will shift as it is consumed by readers, each

with their own values and ideals.

I have spoken about the quality of truth quite a lot here. Though I believe it’s the most

accurate expression for what is conveyed and interpreted within nonfiction, it’s difficult to

reconcile with the concept that thought fictionalizes the truth; everything is built on connotation,

and every experience is subjective. Perhaps, as Herman explains, “it isn’t truth or lies I’m talking

about at all—it isn’t truth or lies I care about. It’s meaningfulness” (90). Yet the distinction

between meaningfulness in things that seem true versus things that are true seems an important

one, and perhaps the element necessary here is honesty. When a story is told with honesty—even

when that honesty is not entirely truthful—it allows for the subjective experience of the writer as

something that holds value. Rather than become cynical of nonfiction that doesn’t accurately

depict “facts,” or discard nonfiction as overly stringent about objective truth, nonfiction responds

to one of the greatest human needs: to understand, and to be understood. The subjectivity of the
writer becomes massively important to the story because they are the only one who has lived

what they lived, the only one with their vantage point on life. And, perhaps, it is the duty of the

nonfiction reader to recognize the limits granted by such a perspective, to be thoughtful about

how much of the story is missing, to not jump to conclusions, to say “this is the writer’s view of

their experience” instead of “this is what happened.” Nonfiction approaches a truth that is only

attainable through individual perception, and it welcomes the faults in our memories, our

uncertainties, and our self-evaluations, be we writers or readers.

 Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New
York, NY: Little, Brown, 2007.

Alexie, Sherman. “The Partially True Story of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian.” Creative Writing Program, Miami University, 3 April 2017, Shideler Hall,
Oxford, OH. Guest Lecture.

Booth, Wayne C. “Who is Responsible in Ethical Criticism, and for What?” Falling into Theory:
Conflicting Views on Reading Literature, edited by David H. Richter, Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2000, pp. 349-355.

Cunningham, Sophie. “‘A Failure of the Imagination’? The Fiction vs. Nonfiction Debate.”
Antipodes, vol. 17, no. 2, 2003, pp. 110–113., www.jstor.org/stable/41957300.

Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face. Boston, Mariner Books, 2016.

Grealy, Suellen. "Hijacked by Grief." The Guardian. August 06, 2004. Accessed May 02, 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/aug/07/biography.features.

Herman, Michelle. "Truth, Truthiness, Memory, and Bald-Faced Lies—And the Pleasures of
Uncertainty." River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, no. 2, 2014, p. 79.
EBSCOhost, proxy.lib.miamioh.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?di
rect=true&db=edspmu&AN=edspmu.S1548333914200105&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Heyne, Eric. “Where Fiction Meets Nonfiction: Mapping a Rough Terrain.” Narrative, vol. 9,
no. 3, 2001, pp. 322–333., www.jstor.org/stable/20107261.

Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

Loftus, Elizabeth F., and Jacqueline E. Pickrell. "The Formation of False Memories." Psychiatric
Annals, vol. 25, no. 12 (1995): 720-725.

Williams, Bronwyn T. “Never Let the Truth Stand in the Way of a Good Story: A Work for
Three Voices.” College English, vol. 65, no. 3, 2003, pp. 290–304.,
www.jstor.org/stable/3594259.