Someone Knows My Name

Today, I have read nearly 100 pages of Lawrence Hill's Someone Knows My Name.

Amazing book. It's so real, I can't believe it's fiction!

(I want to write like him)

"Cousin, you live, even if you dance to my tune"

I just picked up a copy of Writers on Writing, Volume II. I was struck by Dorothy Gallagher's essay: "Recognizing the Book that Needs to be Written."

As you know, my thesis is a series of creative nonfiction pieces. I have been struggling with what to include in my stories, how much truth there needs to be and whether everything must be shared.

The complete essay can be found here on the NY Times site. Here are a few exerpts from the essay that I thought I'd share:

I have never written fiction, and this memoir may be as close as I ever get to it. No more than a biography or a novel is memoir true to life. Because, truly, life is just one damn thing after another. The writer's business is to find the shape in unruly life and to serve her story. Not, you may note, to serve her family, or to serve the truth, but to serve the story. There really is no choice. A reporter of fact is in service to the facts, a eulogist to the family of the dead, but a writer serves the story without apology to competing claims.

***

Now you may ask: Just what is the relation of your memoir to the truth?

It is as close as it can be.

The moment you put pen to paper and begin to shape a story, the essential nature of life -- that one damn thing after another -- is lost. No matter how ambiguous you try to make a story, no matter how many ends you leave hanging, it's a package made to travel.

Everything that happened is not in my stories; how could it be? Memory is selective, storytelling insists on itself. But there is nothing in my stories that did not happen. In their essence they are true.

Or a shade of true.

***

What do you think about these ideas?

Snow days are great for productivity

Today was a great day.

Like a kid, I was excited to have a snow day. Usually, I enjoy getting up and going to work -- even on Mondays. But this morning I was still struggling with a mean sickness that has dogged me and the rest of my family for more than three weeks. So, it was nice to see that I'd have another day to recover. In the mean time, I was able to complete another 11 pages of my thesis and FINALLY finish Erik Larson's Devil in the White City. I just finished the book a few minutes before midnight.

If you haven't read this book, go out and buy it today. Fantastic book. It leaves no stone unturned. Great historic piece filled with suspense and mystery, as well as an in-depth look at one of the most influential happenings in our country's history -- the Chicago World's Fair.

The book only left me with one question. As a St. Louisan, I've always held tight to the legend that the massive Ferris wheel that appeared at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair (but which debuted at the earlier exposition in Chicago) was dismanteled and is buried in Forest Park. Larson's book stops short of saying where those massive sections of steel went. So, Erik, if you're reading this, can you help me out on that??

Did I say it was a great book? I need to post some snippets, so you can see what I'm talking about.

Keep the action going

I'm still reading Erik Larson's Devil in the White City. It's still a very good book that concentrates on two stories: the architechts who create the 1898 World's Fair in Chicago, and a maniacal serial killer operating a few blocks away.

Larson is an incredible writer, and he has done awesome research on this subject. No proverbial stone is unturned. But the strong -- albeit sensational -- part of the story is the serial killer. And what I've found is that I'm fascinated by his story. But, as the book progresses (I'm on page 238), his story is interrupted by HUGE chunks of that which concentrates on the architects. When that happens, the action (for me, anyway) slows down considerably. It's frustrating. I want to skip those parts and flip pages to find more about the killer. I won't, though, because I want the full experience the way the author intended.

This does not discount the author's writing ability because I find him to be tremendous. And, in all fairness to the author, this book was in the history section of Barnes and Noble rather than the true crime section. So, I'm guessing that the main thrust (and, obviously, the part with the most archival material) is the architect story with the serial killer just being an added bonus.

I still recommend this title.

Some questions:

Have you had this experience with books before? If so, what titles? (I think the worst was the "Left Behind" series. I did skip around through those!)

Are there tricks to keep the action going, rather than bogging the reader down in detail?

Are writers cheating the reader if we don't provide the "details" -- even if they're mundane?