Here’s a fine description of that apparent oxymoron, “creative nonfiction,” as delineated by Lee Gutkind, editor of the journal Creative Nonfiction.
Gutkind says the creative nonfiction writer “presents or treats information using the tools of the fiction writer while maintaining allegiance to fact.”
He notes that creative nonfiction allows for the threading of parallel narratives in a story — a “private” narrative and a “public” narrative. That is, personal reflections are interwoven with reportage.
I’m glad to see that Gutkind also includes Gay Talese’s definitive description of the genre, one that argues for the writer’s unfettered consciousness as an essential ingredient.
Talese wrote, “Though often reading like fiction, [it] is not fiction. It is, or should be, as reliable as the most reliable reportage, although it seeks a larger truth than is possible through the mere compilation of verifiable facts, the use of direct quotations, and adherence to the rigid organizational style of the older form.”
Sandor Eke was raised in a one-ring tent circus that traveled across Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s — “the real circus life,” he said. He and his parents lived in a wooden trailer and bathed with buckets of water.
