NOT LIKE MY MOTHER: TRUTH AND THE AUTHOR IN CREATIVE NONFICTION

AZRA ALAGIC

BACHELOR OF ARTS (USQ), GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN CREATIVE WRITING (QUT)

SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF ARTS (RESEARCH)

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES FACULTY QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

2009

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KEY WORDS: Creative Nonfiction, New Journalism, Truth, Fact, Narrative Satisfaction, Authorial Truth, Ethics, Balkans, War, Yugoslavia. ABSTRACT: This exegesis examines how a writer can effectively negotiate the relationship between author, character, fact and truth, in a work of Creative Nonfiction. It was found that individual truths, in a work of Creative Nonfiction, are not necessarily universal truths due to individual, cultural, historical and religious circumstances. What was also identified, through the examination of published Creative Nonfiction, is a necessity to ensure there are clear demarcation lines between authorial truth and fiction. The Creative Nonfiction works examined, which established this framework for the reader, ensured an ethical relationship between author and audience. These strategies and frameworks were then applied to my own Creative Nonfiction. STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP:

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the exegesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signature Date

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The journey to writing and preparing the exegesis and creative work for this Masters has been a long and at times arduous one. Its completion could not have been achieved without the guidance and assistance of my supervisor, Dr Nicole Bourke. A very special thanks to Angela Slatter, who shared her personal Master’s experiences with me (thanks for answering all my questions!) and provided wonderful editorial advice. Thank you to Dr Vivienne Muller for her assistance with the Exegesis and valuable feedback on my creative work. To Caroline, Alan, the two Mares, Juanita, and Linda for the wines that consoled my despair at ever finishing! To my parents, who lent me their stories. Thank you for the lessons and revelations of your lives. I would not be the person I am today without you both. Tata, you started it all. I will forever be your sine. Mum, your strength is inspirational. Fairy, La La and Shoniko…we survived together and find hope in each other, day by day. Nane and Deda, Nagymama and Nagytata: the foundations of who I am. May my book keep your memories alive forever. To Nick for his patience and support. To my three beautiful children, Nicholas, Yasmina and Dominic. May they learn the lessons I have not. To Gary, for his unwavering belief in who I am and what I can achieve. And finally, to the Balkan people. May peace and understanding of our differences be everlasting.

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CONTENTS 1 RESEARCH QUESTION 1 2 INTRODUCTION 1 3 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

a) Subjectivity and truth in New Journalism/ 7 Creative Nonfiction b) The amplification of truth 12 c) The authority of the author 13

4 CASE STUDIES 18 (a) Approaches to representing truth in Creative Nonfiction 18 (b) Misrepresenting authorial truth 22 5 REFLECTIVE CASE STUDY 26 (a) Finding my authorial voice 29 6 CONCLUSION 32 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY 33

1 RESEARCH QUESTION

In what ways can the relationship between author, ‘character’ and authority be ethically

delineated in a work of Creative Nonfiction?

2 INTRODUCTION

In the field of literature it forbids what has in every age been the writer’s essential task—to look at the world from his own independent viewpoint, to tell the truth as he sees it, and so to keep watch and ward in the interest of society as a whole (Milosz, 1980 12).

I first decided I wanted to write a book about the civil unrest in the Balkans when my

family, who resided in Sarajevo, sent me footage of the atrocities the Serbians were

committing against the Bosniaks in the 1990s war. The film was so horrific—including

images of mounds of massacred bodies, children raped and abandoned, whole villages

destroyed, people being tortured—that I was unable to sit through the initial viewing. It

turned my stomach and made me sick to the very core. I could not understand how the

people of my cultural heritage could self implode in the way they had. The last time I had

been to Yugoslavia I had seen none of these tensions, which had triggered the division

that eventually exploded into civil war. The people embraced me, a stranger, and drew

me into their world of song and dance. They were proud people who had dreams of a

fruitful future for themselves and their children.

The Balkan people are complex. I understand this because my parents are

Balkans. It is through their eyes I learned about life, though it was, at times, a violent

education. This propensity towards violence, anger and abuse had puzzled me. Where

did the rage stem from? I did not begin to understand until the day my father found the

strength to tell me of his past and that of his family. I will never forget the time he broke

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down and cried as he told me how his father used to beat him—I had never seen my

father cry. My mother had a story, too, one of disappointment, abuse and betrayal.

In all this—my parents’ lives and the explosive political situation in the

Balkans—I knew there was a story to be told, but which story? As a journalist it is natural

for me to want to write about facts. I wanted to tell the truth, to bear witness to my

parents’ incredible lives and be the scribe for those who did not live to tell their stories.

What I did not foresee was the struggle I would face in being a bearer of truth. I

was mindful that my authorial truth—that is, my individual perception of the truth—

would inevitably colour the narrative of my work. Whose truth would I tell? Everyone’s

truth was different. In the Balkans, Serbians argue they are justified in their war against

Bosniaks and their mission to reclaim land stolen from them by the Turkish ancestors of

the Bosniaks. The Bosniaks, too, argue their truth: that history has nothing to do with the

present and they should not pay for a crime they did not commit.

Ultimately, it led me to exploring these questions through my creative piece Not

Like My Mother and in my exegesis by writing and examining Creative Nonfiction. For

the purposes of this dissertation, the terms New Journalism1 and Creative Nonfiction will

be used interchangeably. I argue that the margins of difference between the two genres

are too slim to warrant a differentiation between the two. New Journalism and Creative

Nonfiction incorporate fact with fiction in a narrative form to achieve a novel-like genre.

Both genres have grouped writings as diverse as memoir, biography, autobiography,

literary fiction and other life writing (Brien 2000, ¶ 3).

I contend that Creative Nonfiction evolved from New Journalism into its

modern, now repopularised form. Gutkind (2004, 14) acknowledges this transition. New

Journalism adds to a factual story by enhancing the narrative with literary techniques,

such as establishing landscape and character development, various points of view,

1 New Journalism is considered a hybrid form of journalism that blends fact with fiction and reads like a

novel. Writers often insert themselves in the copy and employ novel narrative techniques in their writing.

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employment of metaphorical devices, etc, as does Creative Nonfiction, creating a ‘fourth

genre’ (Brien, 2000, ¶ 3). At times, the New Journalist places himself/herself in the story,

as Thompson and Mailer did, so, too, do Creative Nonfiction authors like Frey, Khouri,

Gutkind, Talese, Garner, and Kremmer.

However, by the placement of the ‘I’ into the narrative another dimension is

added, that of an authorial voice, which delineates an authorial truth; in other words the

‘I’ is an attempt by the author to convince the reader of the authorial truth. When

discussing the I, I refer to the Aristotelian concept of the speaker’s character. I plan to

examine how the I influences the audience to believe the authorial truth, and by

extension how the author uses pathos to strengthen this truth. Aristotle argues proof and

the art of persuasion are critical to successful rhetoric:

Of those proofs that are furnished through speech there are three kinds. Some reside in the character of the speaker, some in a certain disposition of the audience and some in the speech itself, through its demonstrating or seeming to demonstrate (Aristotle 1991, 74).

The character of the speaker, or the author’s representation of ‘self’ to the reader, can

have a considerable impact on the reader’s interpretation of the truth. Traditional

journalists position themselves as external; questioning, critiquing, and analysing the story

from a disinterested perspective. New Journalists and Creative Nonfiction writers, on the

other hand, often place themselves in the story as a character with inside and intimate

knowledge or expertise. This works to lend their opinions weight, implicitly or explicitly

asserting that their personal truth has the weight of authority. Some of the recent

problems experienced by Creative Nonfiction practitioners—where their truth has been

questioned2—are a result of this characterisation of the I as author and authority. This

dissertation will examine how the framework established by the New Journalist or

Creative Nonfiction author can influence the ways in which their truths are understood

or interpreted in the public sphere.

2 Frey, Khouri et al have been criticised for misrepresenting themselves and/or their stories.

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Fictional writers, while including facts in their novels, clearly establish a contract

with the reader by marketing the work as fiction. In other words, they make a clear

distinction between the author and the character/s of the narrative. But New Journalism

and Creative Nonfiction are generally marketed as either being factual or based on the

truth. This authorial framework sets up an expectation that the writer will rigidly adhere

to the truth, or at the very least provide clear textual markers where the truth has been

enhanced.

Malcolm argues: “In a work of nonfiction we almost never know the truth of

what happened. The ideal of unmediated reporting is regularly achieved only in fiction,

where the writer faithfully reports on what is going on in his imagination” (1994, 54).

Nevertheless, Creative Nonfiction and New Journalism incorporate fact and fiction in

ways that engage, inform and entertain the reader. I was mindful that in choosing to

write my book as Creative Nonfiction, I would have to ensure that I did not allow my

authorial truth to override everyone else’s truth. I also had to contend with the

questionable validity of memory. I relied heavily on memories of my childhood, and

interviews with family members who also largely relied on their memories. Disparities

between these truths were apparent. Each interviewee, nevertheless, claimed their

memory was the more accurate version. Malcolm argues memory is a fickle thing:

“Memory is notoriously unreliable; when it is intertwined with ill will, it may become

monstrously unreliable” (1994, 134).

Ultimately, it came down to employing an approach that sought to find what

fitted with the narrative and provided the reader with the satisfaction that would

encourage the reader to read on while pursuing the maintenance of an aesthetic moral

historic truth, and adhering to those facts that are documented and verifiable. After all,

that’s what a writer aims for: to ensure the reader continues to read.

Blending fact with fiction has a long and volatile history. Truman Capote was one

of the first writers who self-consciously united the two in his acclaimed book In Cold

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Blood, first published as a series of articles in The New Yorker (1965). Capote exercised

creative licence in creating a narrative resolution when the real life story of the Cutter

family murder provided no plausible ending.

More recently, authors such as Helen Darville-Demidenko, Norma Khouri and

James Frey have been criticised for blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Most

authors assert that some aspects of their writing stem from personal experience, whether

consciously or subconsciously3. The desire to put down on paper the inner workings of

our emotions and thoughts, and insist that they matter as much as historical facts, is a

strong one. The need to connect with the reader has long seen writers from many genres

conduct extensive research into their subject matter to ensure they can provide a more

realistic or truthful portrayal of a story. The ‘real’ factor rings true for many readers.

This was evident when Helen Darville-Demidenko claimed she was of Ukrainian

descent, thus lending her book, The Hand That Signed The Paper, authorial credibility based

on her persona and familial history. Do her lies diminish the work? It was not published

as Creative Nonfiction/New Journalism, but as a novel. What discredited the work was

Darville-Demidenko’s extra-textual marketing. Despite establishing an initial contract

with the reader stating the work was fictional, her comments at subsequent readings and

interviews broke that contractual agreement with the reader when she lied about her

cultural heritage.

Many fictional novels draw considerably on ‘facts’. The problem, it seems, is how

a writer negotiates between the authorial truth and Wolfe’s notion of the larger truth.

This larger truth, according to Wolfe (Wolfe 1990, 15), is a truth that can be universally

recognised, one based on basic human morals and ethics. This larger truth, however,

does not tend to consider cultural truths. This may be the crippling force, which brings

3 Writers such as Nick Earls (Zig Zag Streeet), Rebecca Sparrow (The Girl Most Likely), and Kate Grenville (The Secret River) have sourced their stories from real life experiences.

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some Creative Nonfiction books to a sudden, discredited end. Authorial truth, which

incorporates a cultural truth, does not easily translate across cultures.

As a journalist, I am expected to abide by an un-enforced code of ethics. One

ethic, which is particularly relevant here, is to provide a balanced, true account of the

facts, without bias. In writing Not Like My Mother, however, I moved beyond the facts

and used a range of creative writing techniques commonly used by novelists to negotiate

a balance between authorial truth and a larger truth.

This exegesis will examine the process of negotiating between authorial truth and

the ‘larger truth’ in New Journalism/Creative Nonfiction by:

1) Examining subjectivity and truth, and how the placement of the authorial voice

within the text can impact on notions of truth and establish a framework for the

reader.

2) Analysing James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and Helen Garner’s Joe Cinque’s

Consolation to assess how they have negotiated between competing paradigms of

truth. This section will compare and contrast Garner and Frey’s techniques, and

identify ways in which Garner succeeded in blending fact with fiction while Frey

misrepresented facts, largely due to the placement of the authorial/narrational I.

3) Conducting a reflective analysis on the writing of my own book, Not Like My

Mother, as an attempt at negotiating between authorial and larger truths.

When I first began this project I hoped to adhere to the facts as much as possible. As my

journey progressed I became increasingly aware that I would never be able to represent

everyone’s truth. In the end, Not Like My Mother is mostly fiction, but it also contains

much truth: my truth, my parents’ truths, my grandparents’ truths and the truths of the

people, who were massacred, displaced or raped during the Balkan civil wars. My sincere

hope is that readers of Not Like My Mother will take away their own truth from the

reading experience—whatever that may be.

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3 LITERATURE REVIEW

The way we remember things is not necessarily the way they were (Roy Peter Clark, ¶ 10)

(a) Subjectivity and truth in New Journalism/Creative Nonfiction

The question of what is true has been a philosophical quandary since the days of

Aristotle’s Correspondence Theory of Truth—the notion that truth consists of reality.

Traditional models of journalism are anchored in the objective representation of reality,

the truth and accurate reporting, though many academics have questioned objectivity

within journalism (Tuchman 1972, 662), some even arguing that objectivity is

unachievable. Certainly, there have been examples where the public have questioned the

media’s claim to objectivity, such as in their coverage of the Vietnam war (Staub 1997,

55).

New Journalism/Creative Nonfiction provided journalists with an alternative

form of writing in which subjectivity, and the merging of fact with fiction, is encouraged

(Gutkind 2004, 15). Combining fact with fictional techniques can be traced back to

writers like Defoe, Dickens and Orwell, to name a few (Van Luven 2000, 5; Wolfe 1990,

55). New Journalism fed the mass’s desire for an insight into the story behind the facts,

or a larger truth, which identified the social and political changes occurring at the time.

The public wanted ‘stories’ that did not toe the government line through a regurgitation

of propaganda (Conley 1997, 225). Traditional forms of journalism relied on voices of

authority, particularly political voices. Hirst argues: “Ninety-nine per cent of political

reporting is only churning out the dominant ideology. It rarely, if ever, goes outside the

framework of parliamentary free-market liberal democratic ideas” (Hirst 1998, 209).

Recent, biased media coverage of world issues and events such as the Gulf War,

Iraq, Climate Change, Islam, terrorism, etc. indicate the media are still influenced by

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voices of ‘authority’ and succumb to pressure and bias (Manning 2006, 37; Shah 2004, 1).

The inability of the majority of the media to include the ordinary voice, instead relying on

voices of authority, has been criticised by many (Shah 2004, 1; Manning 2006, 37;

Romano 2004, 44; Ewart 2003, 213; Forde 1999, 61; Meadows & Molnar 2002, 9).

Through New Journalism or Creative Nonfiction the ‘ordinary’ voice can often be

represented, providing journalists with a more independent form in which they can

address and explore social and political changes, and subjective truths, without editorial

control on content. Texts such as Garner’s Joe Cinque’s Consolation, Waris Dirie’s Desert

Flower, Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called ‘It’, Irris Makler’s Our Woman in Kabul, and George

Negus’s The World From Islam, explore minority voices, which are not often represented

in mainstream media.

Increased sales, reviews and publication of New Journalism in the 1960s

indicated a growing market for this new way of writing4. New Journalism became

popular because it provided a more subjective view, an insight into the minds and lives

of the journalists’ subjects (Weinberg 2006, 45; Wolfe 1990, 28; Hanson 1999, ¶ 7

Hartstock in Miller, 10). Journalists such as Hunter S. Thompson pressed against the

barriers of political propaganda to reveal other ‘truths’ in a style that was daring and

entertaining. This did not mean that facts such as names, dates, places or direct quotes

could be inaccurate (Gutkind 2004, 14), but rather that the New Journalist could indulge

in novelistic techniques. It was the New Journalists’ mission to get behind the

propaganda and dig for the ‘larger truth’. New Journalism had a purpose, and everything

was fair game (Hirst 1998, 209), but traditional news also has a purpose—to report the

facts objectively, to inform, to act as the fourth estate5 and reflect society to itself.

4 Magazines such as Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and Playboy regularly published New Journalism

(Wolfe, 1990, R.V.B, 1998, Carney, 2006). 5 Journalism is often considered to be The Fourth Estate. The watchdog of the legal realm ‘building on the three estates of the Lords Spiritual (the Church), the Lords Temporal (the House of Lords) and the House of Commons, through which the public could hold politicians accountable’ (Tanner, 2002, 4).

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There is still evidence of factual reporting in Australia today. The style and tone

of most news stories remain firmly entrenched in traditional news style writing; reporting

facts, and avoiding personal feelings or adjectives to ‘colour’ the copy. New

Journalism/Creative Nonfiction, however, engages and entertains the reader, seeks

connection, empathy and understanding, and allows the journalist to write subjectively

about a topic they are passionate about without all of the restrictions of conventional

journalism.

The New Journalism story is not just about the facts, but includes peripheral

information about the subject’s life, such as their day-to-day activities, their lifestyle

choices, their favourite drink, colour, opinions on politics, and so on. These elements

colour the narrative and offer subjective truths. Wolfe (1990) contends that, far from

exaggerating the truth through subjective points of view, “the recording of such details is

not mere embroidery in prose. It lies as close to the center of the power of realism as any

other device in literature” (1990, 47).

New Journalists borrow elements of fiction writing to enhance the traditional

news story in an attempt, as Wolfe argues:

[to show] that it was possible to write accurate non-fiction with techniques usually associated with novels and short stories. It was that–plus. It was the discovery that it was possible in non-fiction, in journalism, to use any literary device, from the traditional dialogisms of the essay to stream-of-consciousness, and to use many different kinds simultaneously, or within a relatively short space. . . to excite the reader both intellectually and emotionally (1990, 28).

Critics of the genre have argued the techniques employed by New Journalists—varying

points of view, dialogue, metaphor, simile, etc—are misleading, that one of the crucial

ethical components of traditional journalism—objectivity—is lost in this newer literary

form (Wolfe 1990, 24). This is exactly the point of New Journalism: to offer a ‘larger

truth’ that includes the subjective viewpoint of the writer.

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Given these claims to a larger truth, the reader might still wonder what is fact and

what is fiction. Van Luven (2000) points out negotiating the truth can be a juggle

between ‘collision’ and ‘fusion’:

If the writer does his or her job properly and manages to link private understanding with an accurate portrayal of the external events, then she will create an artifact, a third reality, which brings inner and outer worlds together in a piece of prose which illuminates a larger issue, enables readers to understand a larger truth (Van Luven 2000, 7).

Capote’s acclaimed book (considered to be an example of New Journalism) In Cold Blood

(1966) shows how a third reality can be achieved. In Cold Blood became an instant success

after The New Yorker published excerpts from the work in progress in 1965. The success

of In Cold Blood was an unprecedented response to a new form of writing. As Wolfe

observed, “Capote himself didn’t call it journalism; far from it: he said he had invented a

new literary genre, ‘the nonfiction novel’ ” (Wolfe 1973, 41).

Another, more recent, example is Gornick’s memoir, Fierce Attachments (1987),

which was considered by the New York Times a “fine and unflinchingly honest book”

(Quoted in Keyes 2005, ¶ 7). However, as Keyes explains (2005, ¶ 7), Gornick eventually

revealed, a decade and a half after the book was published, that she’d invented parts of

the memoir and included composite characters. This creative manipulation offered a

subjective truth. A truth that is peppered with her individual perception of events as they

occurred in her world.

In Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (1966),

Hunter S. Thompson, on the other hand, was much clearer about his position within the

narrative —a character with inside knowledge—but Parkes (2005, ¶ 6) argues that doing

so confuses the reader, or makes them justifiably suspicious. He claims:

Readers need to be educated that creative non-fiction is exactly that—a melding of fact and fiction. What they choose to believe or disbelieve is up to them (2005, ¶ 6).

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In his defence of the techniques used in New Journalism, Wolfe (1990) contended the

non-fiction writer must embrace realism, while allowing for variations in interpretation:

I am talking about technique; as for the rest, from character to moral consciousness (whatever that may be), it depends upon the writer’s experience and intellect, his insights, the quality of his emotions, his ability to see into others, his ‘genius,’ to use the customary word – and this remains so whether he is working in fiction or in journalism (1990, 49).

Hirst (1998, 208) argues New Journalism has disappeared in Australia. It died a rapid

death following criticism of its misrepresentation of the truth (Proyect, 2005, ¶ 1), but I

would argue that it has emerged under new labels—such as Creative Nonfiction. Works

of non-fiction have increased in popularity by encompassing a wider pool of approaches

such as literary journalism, memoir, the personal essay, travel writing and embedded

journalism6.

Today we are seeing a renewal of the popularity of New Journalism/Creative

Nonfiction. The public’s infatuation with ‘real’ stories has created a demand for

individual truths:

Readers, as Random House Canada publisher Anne Collins notes, have an insatiable appetite for true stories: ‘We're infinitely curious about the way other people have stumbled along. There's a resonance to a story if we can say: it's true’ (Bethune 2006, 68).

Books such as Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Jung Chang’s Wild Swans, Nikki

Gemmel’s The Bride Stripped Bare, and Gregory David Roberts’s Shantaram have fed the

public’s thirst for real life stories. Like New Journalism, “it is the authority of the truth

the idea of truth, anyway—that makes the memoir attractive to readers” (Kupfer 1996,

¶1).

6 See for example Jane Cramer, Phil Dickie, Ted Conover, George Negus and Susan Orlean, all of whom offer subjective truths.

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(b) The amplification of truth

The amplification of truth can be seen in tabloid journalism, where journalists regularly

sensationalise facts to create a ‘bigger’, more controversial story. Despite the public’s

consumption of sensationalised journalism and infotainment, readers seem less forgiving

and accepting of broken demarcation lines in Creative Nonfiction. More and more

Creative Nonfiction writers, such as Frey, Khouri, and Darville-Demidenko, are being

challenged over their creative practices and their reasons for ‘enhancing’ the truth. I

focus on these more recent examples rather than older examples in order to ascertain

why the notion of truth is such a struggle for these ‘newer’ writers. These examples have

also received more attention from the media.

With the reader’s hunger for an insight into various truths—individual, cultural,

political, and social—the line between fact and fiction is increasingly being negotiated.

Staub (1997, 57) argues the over-involvement of the reader in the truth and the writer’s

ability to enhance the truth to the point of evoking ‘moral panic’, present ethical

problems. Perhaps the notion of objectivity needs to be re-thought (Cunningham 2003, ¶

10) to acknowledge a human, self–reflexive concept of truth and recognise how writers,

whether they are traditional journalists or New Journalists, construct their authority at

the expense of other truths.

New Journalism, like Creative Nonfiction, was credited with relaying the ‘story

behind the story,’ or what Wolfe termed the ‘larger truth’ (1990, 55). It invited readers to

engage with realism, a story based on facts that read like a novel. Wolfe (1990) argues

that older forms of the novel were ‘drenched in realism’ (55), that is, they included

factual details and not just fiction. Despite this, novelists did not and do not attract the

same amount of criticism as Creative Nonfiction writers because novelists don’t claim

their work to be true.

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When writing about truth, writers need to clearly establish a framework, which

the reader will be guided by. This framework also acts a guide for future readers, who

may not be aware of the social or cultural context of the time when the book was

written. Proud notes that, “In general or literary fiction the facts may be those of the

society in which the story is set, as well as those of human nature known to the author

through experience” (2004, 30).

When writers make claims that their story is based on truth, they are often

criticised, as in the case of Darville-Demidenko, or Moorhouse’s Martini. If the book is

marketed as being based on a true story, the reader justifiably expects some truth, but

might also be aware that the writer has indulged in some creative licence. However, if the

writer indicates that the story is ‘true’, as Frey did, the reader expects the writer to adhere

to the truth as rigidly as possible. This genre-labelling, is crucial to how the book is

perceived by readers.

(c) The authority of the author

Creative Nonfiction has evolved as a hybrid form of New Journalism and the novel,

exploring analogous forms of truth, authority, reality, and narrative satisfaction. In

writing The Secret River, Kate Grenville stressed the importance of the credibility genre can

provide to a story:

The subject matter of The Secret River is so important, and so politically charged, I didn’t want readers to be able to say oh, it’s only a novel – she made it all up (Grenville 2006, www.users.bigpond.com/kgrenville/SFTSR/sftsr.html).

Grenville was very mindful of honouring the facts, while at the same time ensuring she

told the story and maintained her authority as an author. She explains how she struggled

with finding an authorial truth. Eventually, she realised, based on her interpretation of

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Michael Ondaatje’s Anvil’s Ghost, that she could ‘fictionalise the quester but not the quest’

(Grenville 2006, 156).

The perception of truth varies from one individual to another and this is then

reflected in the representation of truth, which will be examined more closely later.

However, what might be true for one person may not be plausible to the next. In his

research on objectivity, Cunningham (2003, ¶ 8) found ten journalists provided ten

different definitions of objectivity. While Gutkind and Wolfe argue a ‘larger truth’ can be

achieved in a work of Creative Nonfiction, they do not consider the external influences

that may affect authorial truth: the notion that a singular, homogenous truth is

unachievable due to a number of contributing factors including, but not limited to,

political, social, religious and cultural influences.

Ge contends that the authorial intention in writing about an event is more

important than the event itself. “If the event is accessible to the reader only through

writing, what is it if not as perceived by the writer and mediated by language?” (2003, 4).

Indeed, some critics contend that authorial intention is the most practical approach of

interpretation for the reader and that, without it, the reader is given too much freedom

to secure a single interpretation (Hirsch in Shusterman 1988, 401).

One of the problems Creative Nonfiction has consistently faced has been the

writer’s inability to effectively juggle fact and fiction to achieve an authorial truth (Taylor,

2002). Often the writer enhances the truth because their memory, or the facts, is unable

to fill a hole within the narrative. Roorbach (2001, 9) argues that writers are not perfect,

and ultimately can be sure of very little. This includes not only their own perspective, but

also those of the people the author may be interviewing for a work of Creative

Nonfiction. The authorial truth can be misinterpreted as a lie, and, as Brien (2002, ¶ 17)

claims, once the reader discovers they have been lied to, the bond between writer and

reader is forever broken. Executive editor at Random House, Daniel Menaker, argues

readers of Creative Nonfiction do not expect just the facts:

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I don’t think anyone has such expectations of a memoir…it’s not that memoirs don’t have autobiographical material or meaning…it’s just that they’re more selective and more concentrated on single things – the memory of a parent, the memory of a childhood, the memory of a great professor (Menaker in Hughes 2006, 4).

James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces; is a memoir based on what Frey claimed was his

personal struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. However, it has been revealed that

Frey embellished aspects of the work (Peyser 2006, 62), including his claim to have been

involved in a train accident, which killed a girl from his school, the period of time he

spent in jail—in the book it was three months in reality it was only several hours—and a

root-canal procedure, which he claimed in the book to have undergone without

anaesthesia. After his misrepresentations were revealed by The Smoking Gun, Frey received

international criticism. However, it did not impact the sales of A Million Little Pieces

(Woodward 2006, 10). In subsequent editions of Frey’s book, an insert, written by Frey,

was included, explaining why he felt it necessary to embellish the truth. Apart from the

need to supplement his poor recall of events, Frey argues he “wanted the stories in the

book to ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension that all great stories

require” (Frey 2004, insert).

Frey is not the first to embellish the truth; others who have done so include

Nasdijj (The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams) and Norma Khouri (Forbidden

Love). However, according to some publishers, readers are still keen to absorb the ‘reality

fix’ of Creative Nonfiction, ensuring the genre remains in strong demand. Barnes and

Noble state they have “about 500 memoirs in print—as are close to 20 books about how

to write memoirs” (Hughes 2006, 2). Some publishers, however, are starting to impose

stricter expectations on Creative Nonfiction writers. Authors will be questioned about the

authenticity of their work and publishers say they’ll include disclaimers to protect

themselves from authors’ lies (Hughes 2006, 4).

16

Whether sales are impacted by embellishments of the truth is difficult to

determine. Khouri, for example, lost the trust of her readers and her publisher, while

others, like Frey, continue to enjoy solid sales. Khouri was accused of misrepresenting

Islamic women in Jordan (Taylor 2003, ¶ 32). Ultimately, her truth was coloured by her

personal agendas. Unlike traditional forms of journalism, where the journalist approaches

a story with a degree of skepticism, Creative Nonfiction writers are very close to their

topic, and, as a result, approach the work with a strong sense of I.

When Khouri and Darville-Demidenko were exposed for misrepresenting the

truth—Darville-Demidenko for claiming she was of Ukrainian descent and Khouri for

claiming the events in her book happened to her best friend—they each claimed they

were attempting to establish their authorial truth, hoping this would enhance the

narrative (Know & Overington 2004, ¶ 4; Knox 2005, ¶ 2). Kupfer (1996) argues we

need to give “memoir writers permission to lie, but only when the reconstructed version

of the story does not deceive the reader in its search for the aesthetic truth” (¶ 12). By

aesthetic truth, Kupfer means a truth which enhances the narrative and fills in the blanks

which memory cannot. She goes on to contend that there are three kinds of lies that are

acceptable from the Creative Nonfiction writer:

1. Lies that can fill what memory cannot.

2. “Lies that narrative structure often demands: composite characterization,

compression of time, omission of unnecessary detail” (¶ 12).

3. And the lie that enables the writer to “tell what we do not know”(¶ 12).

Gutkind takes a middle ground, stating, “The creative nonfiction writer tries to be as

truthful and factual as possible. Making things up to enhance the narrative is

unacceptable” (Gutkind in Brien, 2000, ¶ 6). He argues that fact and truth are totally

different from each other, and that while facts can be incorporated within a creative

framework, they should not be tampered with. However, he also argues that:

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A writer's concept of the truth may not be universally accepted and may even conflict with the facts as others understand or remember them. Good creative nonfiction does not deny personal opinion; on the contrary, it welcomes the subjective voice (Gutkind in Brien 2000, ¶ 13).

It is in their inability to distinguish fact from truth that some writers come undone. So

passionate are some Creative Nonfiction writers about their agendas that they don’t

believe accessorising the facts (adding information to make the narrative seem more

appealing to the reader), to achieve authorial truth, is detrimental to the work. Gutkind

argues this passion for the subject matter is an essential element of Creative Nonfiction.

However, as shown by the examples of Khouri, Darville-Demidenko, Frey, and others,

using this passion as a justification for lying about your persona, or how the story

originated, can have negative consequences. Writers and readers need to consider that

the truth is a matter of perception and can vary from one person to the next, and that

truth is an abstraction negotiable in the context of various conflicting cultural, political or

social interpretations.

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4 CASE STUDIES

When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let them thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100? Right? Whoever says he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal (An Old Jew of Galicia in Milosz 1980, 5).

The increasing popularity of Creative Nonfiction has provided writers a new marketing

opportunity. Just as journalists in the ‘70s made the transition from journalism to New

Journalism, so too present day journalists are making the transition into Creative

Nonfiction. Helen Garner, Christopher Kremmer, George Negus, and Irris Makler are

examples of those who have stepped over the line. In this section Helen Garner’s Joe

Cinque’s Consolation and James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces will be examined to assess how

both writers handled the representation of truth, while trying to establish an authorial

voice.

(a) Approaches to representing truth in Creative Nonfiction

Approaches to Creative Nonfiction vary. Both Garner and Frey place themselves within

the narrative, and both have chosen the Creative Nonfiction genre to tell their stories.

While Frey acts as his own voice, Garner becomes the voice for Joe Cinque by reporting

his story. There are correlations between the two works, yet their narratives are vastly

different. Frey’s work reads like a novel: it consistently employs literary techniques such

as metaphor and first person points of view, however, he fictionalised part of his

narrative.

Though Garner’s work, at times, does this also, her writing style is more

restrained: she is being much more careful with the facts than Frey, who seems intent on

spilling as much exaggerated detail about his life and suffering as possible rather than

being concerned with accurate representation (Mordue 2003, ¶ 9). The revelation that

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Frey embellished the truth in his work is reflected in the finer details of his writing, long

before the truth was revealed, such as in this example where his memory fails him as he

tries to explain to his brother what drugs he was taking:

So what was it? What was what? What were you taking? I’m not sure. How can you not be sure? I don’t remember. What do you remember? Bits and pieces Like what? I don’t remember. (Frey 2003, 5)

There are many other moments in Frey’s text, which provide an early indication to the

reader that Frey’s memory is vague at best and cannot be relied on. In an added insert to

explain his deceptions, he claims he used “supporting documents, such as medical

records, therapists’ notes, and personal journals” (Frey 2003, insert). Despite this claim,

Frey has not directly quoted from these sources or interviews.

On the other hand Garner exposes the facts with the careful dedication of a

criminal investigator. Much of Garner’s story quotes lengthy transcripts from court

proceedings and face-to-face interviews, which Garner meticulously conducted and

transcribed. In the following extract, Garner sets the scene by identifying each of the

‘characters’ before directly quoting the cross examination of an expert witness the

defence has called upon:

‘Doesn’t that show,’ said Golding, ‘the capacity for developing some intimacy in the relationship with the first boy?’ ‘No!’ said Byrne. ‘She’s a self-centred, angry girl who’s punishing this boy quite unnecessarily. She sees boys as an expendable commodity. You get one, you use him up, you throw him away.’

Memories from my own selfish and carelessly hurtful youth flashed through my head, scenes I did not care to examine. I shifted in my seat. I had joked with the journalists about it, but this stuff was getting too close for comfort (Garner 2004, 44).

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Garner does place herself within the narrative, but through internal dialogue that details

her personal reaction to the testimony. The reader is no longer simply a disinterested

observer of the court proceedings, but is also invited into Garner’s thoughts and

emotions. The reader begins to empathise with her, and travels along the path guided by

Garner.

According to Grenville, Garner mixes “memoir, history and speculation”, which

give her books richness and life without compromising the factual basis (Grenville 2006,

147). However, Garner struggled with relying on the memory of the people she

interviewed surrounding the death of Joe Cinque, and at times had to fill in the details to

achieve narrative satisfaction. Though she speculated how the courts can rely on

memory, in the following quote, she indirectly questions how she, too, can rely on vague

memories:

If memory is not to be trusted, what can courts rely on? How can they establish what ‘really happened’? How can things from the past, even the relatively recent past, be proved? (Garner 2004, 124)

This inability to directly quote can entice the writer to lie. As Malcolm points out, when

memory fails, “the scope for immoral action may be even greater”(1994, 114). Garner

has resisted this temptation despite also having to rely on, at times, vague memories.

Though she has elaborated and reflected on the facts, Garner has not created new facts,

she has devised techniques that clearly indicate to the reader where facts stop and

imagination begins. In the first chapter, Garner establishes a foundation for the reader to

follow by using a number of sources, such as paramedics, a fire officer and police, to set

the scene. These statements of fact are simply linked in narrative form without any

obvious departure from the truth.

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Garner indicates her departures from fact to fiction with clear demarcation lines,

such as when she directly quotes, or when she enhances the narrative with literary

devices such as in the following example:

The psychiatrist was warm, she was motherly, she was professional. The way she spoke about her patient was tinged with possessiveness. ‘I think she trusts me,’ she said earnestly, and a flicker of spite ran through me: So you have gained the trust of this ‘witch’. You have tamed a wild, glamorous creature whom others fear and see as evil. You are not afraid of her. She will peck grain from your hand (Garner 2004, 117).

To develop the characters, she uses the insights of close friends or relatives whom

she has interviewed, or letters written by the characters themselves, such as in the

following example were Garner quotes directly from letters written by Anu Singh

to her family, providing a unique insight into Singh’s mental state while in

custody:

I watched him die, she wrote. Didn’t save him. Then I thought, fuck, I don’t want to die…The prosecution has a very strong case against me. I could be looking at 20 years…What a mess I have made out of a potentially perfect life (Garner 2004, 17)

Frey, unlike Garner, writes about his experiences with heightened emotion. His authorial

truth draws the reader in through raw exposure to graphic detail, such as the following:

I wake up to the drone of an airplane engine and the feeling of something warm dripping down my chin. I lift my hand to feel my face. My front four teeth are gone, I have a hole in my cheek, my nose is broken and my eyes are swollen nearly shut (Frey 2003, 1).

The truth in Frey’s work is assiduously hidden beneath the bravado of his self-

revelations. His accountability to the truth is limited by his experiences and cannot

necessarily be verified by other talents as Garner’s work can. For readers of Frey’s work,

his willingness to provide a stark portrayal of the life of a drug addict and alcoholic may

override any deception he may have committed (Wyatt 2006, ¶ 9).

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(b) Misrepresenting authorial truth

When Frey was publicly accused of embellishing the truth he admitted to doing so,

claiming, in some parts, that his memory did not serve him correctly and that he had not

put much thought into the genre he was writing in (Frey 2003, insert). He said he wanted

his experiences, or authorial truth, to tell his story about drug addiction and alcoholism.

However, his authorial truth became littered with outright lies, such as his role in a train

accident that killed a girl from his school, in reality, he was not involved in the accident,

or the period of time he claimed to have spent in jail, which in the book was purported

to be three months, but in reality was ‘only several hours’ (Frey 2003, insert). At which

point does embellishing the truth become bald lies? It could be argued that that point is

also subjective. After all, a lie is not only defined by morals and ethics, but also cultural

boundaries. What may be a lie in one culture, may simply be part of ‘telling the story’ in

another. Though claiming to be in an accident, when you were not actually there is a

clear lie, rather than the latter example, which is more of an embellishment.

While Frey claims his truth is subjective, his confessionals seem unable to adhere

to the truth and shows how fragile truth can be; this presents a moral dilemma, for as

Yeoh claims “The end of confession is to tell the truth to and for oneself” (2003, 333).

Frey was unable to do this. It may have been the drugs and alcohol that made his

memory foggy, but Frey’s claim that embellishing his past experiences for ‘the greater

purpose of the book’ (Frey 2003, insert) indicates his primary desire was to entertain the

reader and not accurately report his authorial truth. Yet, Frey reasons his authorial truth

falls in line with the expectations of a memoir. As he told Larry King in an interview:

Memoir—the word literally means ‘my story’. A memoir is a subjective retelling of events. A memoir is within the genre of nonfiction. I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to say I’ve conned anyone. You know, the book is 432 pages long, The total page count of disputed events is 18, which is less that 5 percent of the total book (NA, Winfrey stands behind ‘Pieces’ author, 2007).

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In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Frey said, “I think I wrote about the events in the

book truly and honestly and accurately” (Smoking Gun, ¶ 6). However, in A Million

Little Pieces he writes, “I drink and I smoke and I think about her and at a certain point

blackness comes and memory fails me” (2003, 6). This is an excellent example of what

Brien argues is an overbearing of the ‘I’ where the author’s subjectivity overshadows the

subject being discussed (2000, ¶ 10). The egocentricity of Frey’s narrative becomes all-

consuming with little deviation to other aspects of the story-line, a common theme

through the book.

His memory failure is typical of an alcoholic, yet he consistently claims his book

was based on his memories. Like Khouri, Frey misrepresented himself post-publication.

Not only did he lie in his book, but he continued to lie in interviews after the book was

published. He had many opportunities to provide clarity, to explain his approach to

writing his memoir and ensure readers were not misinterpreting his intentions. The lies

made in the book may have served to enhance narrative satisfaction, but what Frey did

not account for was the dissatisfaction readers would feel when the truth finally came

out.

His misrepresentation of the facts managed to sell 1.77 million copies of A

Million Little Pieces in the US in 2005 alone (Smoking Gun, ¶ 3), and perhaps that was his

incentive. Frey seemed unsatisfied with his authorial truth and set out to sensationalise

his experiences. According to Smoking Gun (2007, ¶ 6) he exaggerated his criminal

history, trying to convince readers of his ‘malevolence’. He claimed he underwent root-

canal surgery without anesthesia and was on a plane trip with a gaping hole in his cheek,

bleeding, with his clothes covered in blood—all falsehoods. Perhaps what Frey

perceived as the truth and in essence his memory—which contained variations of the

truth and outright creations of truth—are more real to him than the truth because it is

what he perceived or wanted the truth to be. However, by this time, his reality becomes

24

so implausible, it causes his readers to question the accuracy of his recollection of

events.

Frey does not stop at embellishing the truth. He uses other devices to further

sensationalise or emphasise his experiences. One such technique is his unnecessary use

of capital letters. “I walk into the Room” (2003, 8), and again, “We have the highest rate

of any Facility in the World. At any given time, there are between two hundred and two

hundred and fifty Patients spread through six Units…” (2003, 9). This technique only

serves to exaggerate the content and context of the story.

Often the narrative is repetitive, perhaps an indication of the cycle of drug and

alcohol abuse. The language is simple; the sentences often short. For me, these

techniques highlight Frey’s embellishments of facts; the repetition—an indication of

poor memory and an inability to accurately recall the facts.

I grab the end of the bed and I lift it and I flip it and the mattress goes and I grab the simple metal frame and I lift it and I throw it down with everything everything everything and it snaps but it’s not enough so I stomp it stomp it stomp it and it snaps again again again and there are only bars and bolts and screws and I’m screaming and it feels good and I’m just getting started (Frey 2003, 60)

The above example contains a number of repeated words. The only purpose it serves

is to sensationalise the incident, to express a greater degree of frustration and anger.

What Frey did not seem to realise was that there was no need to embellish the

facts: his authorial truth would have been a sufficient story and an honorable one. The

courage it takes to write about your inadequacies, your lowest point in life, to take the

step and admit that you have a problem—a difficult thing to do for an alcoholic—

would have made for a powerful story supported by authorial credibility.

Garner, on the other hand, has received less criticism, despite relaying the facts

of other people’s stories, which requires greater discipline in adhering to the facts than

when portraying a personal story. Perhaps, this is where the difference between the two

works is most symbolic, in that a memoir could initially be considered as coming under

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less scrutiny than a work like Garner’s purely because certain events can only be

confirmed by the individual writing the story. A writer who attempts to portray

someone else’s story, on the other hand, is held accountable by the existence of

witnesses, as was the case with Garner. In writing Joe Cinque’s Consolation, Garner’s

journalistic background provided her with the discipline necessary to adhere to the facts.

But as Frey inevitably discovered, memoir also has its witnesses.

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5 REFLECTIVE CASE STUDY

The journalist works under the same curse as the biographer (Malcolm 1994, 113)

As a journalist I have been taught to report the facts accurately and objectively. I was

encouraged to approach a story with a degree of scepticism, to research and uncover the

truth and report it without any use of literary devices. Certainly, I had an opinion about

each story that I covered, but I was not personally invested in the story. Readers were

not interested in what I thought, as I was not a voice of authority.

However, when it came to writing Not Like My Mother my personal connection

to the story provided me with some authorial credibility. I quickly realised that the story I

wanted to tell would be subjective. Because of this personal connection to the story I

could not distance myself and be objective. In any case, given the reaction of readers to

authors such as Frey and Khouri, I did not feel that readers would be willing to accept

my work as fact, but I wanted to report the story as truthfully as possible. There were a

lot of holes within the narrative, which needed to be filled, but the basis of the story, I

felt, was an important one that needed to be told.

In Searching for the Secret River Kate Grenville explains why she chose the genre of

Creative Nonfiction for The Secret River:

I wanted to tell the story of what I’d learned about the frontier, to explore that sad history of fear, misunderstanding and violence. It was a tale that drew its power from the fact that it was real. Interposing a layer of invention would defeat my aim: to tell the unvarnished story as truthfully as I could (Grenville 2006, 146).

For nearly the same reasons that Grenville identifies, I opted to write Not Like My

Mother as Creative Nonfiction. I also had a frontier (years of Balkan civil wars),

misunderstanding (Serbians, Croatian, Bosniaks and Albanians, all of whom struggled to

understand each other and seemed unable to effectively communicate their needs), and

violence (war, and family violence). All this was composed out of a collection of facts,

both historical and familial, which I had to juggle and incorporate within the narrative. It

27

was a mammoth task. The Balkan situation is a complex one. Toss into the mix my

family’s personal experiences: my grandparents living and trying to survive World War II;

my parents fleeing a communist-driven, oppressed Yugoslavia; and me, growing up in a

religiously and culturally mixed family.

What I hoped to achieve in my work was a fusion of multiple truths, which

would represent the Balkan people and their plight. I hoped to show many truths, not

just a Bosniak truth, but also a Serbian and Croatian truth. Mindful that Creative

Nonfiction did not have a credible modern history, it seemed, however, the only genre in

which I could effectively deal with facts and the larger truth.

Through Creative Nonfiction I hoped to give a voice to the ordinary people

caught up in the Balkan conflict, and while the story is based on some facts, such as the

history of various Balkan wars, geographic locations, familial accounts, historical facts,

socio-economic facts and cultural problems, I felt the story needed to be assisted by

literary techniques commonly used by novelists: multiple points of view, composite

characters, metaphorical devices and so on, to draw on fact through imagination

(Simpson 2003). I felt this would result in a richer text, which would achieve greater

narrative satisfaction. I wanted to explore the relationship between mother and daughter

in a culture of conflict; to explore the notions of identity, displacement, unconditional

love, pride, loss, and infidelity. I would have been unable to do this if I had simply

reported the facts, as Garner had in Joe Cinque’s Consolation. It is the inner nuances of each

character, which helped craft a story in which conflict existed not only on the surface,

through civil wars, but also through interpersonal conflicts an aspect of history not easily

reported in traditional modes of journalism. By exploring the text through Creative

Nonfiction I was able to incorporate the inner working of the characters’ minds and

show how the social and political changes and religious upheaval in which they were

caught up, moulded the characters’ personalities.

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This need to embellish the facts came about from gaps within the factual story

that my family told. They are uneducated people. Their stories live on only in their

memories and not through the written word. Relatives had died and so, too, had their

stories, their truth. An alternate truth had been passed on, but it was unreliable.

With this eclectic palate of truths and facts I began to weave a story which

depicts the lives of three generations of women who struggle through their individual

battles. Though I attempted to remain objective in what I wrote, I struggled to detach my

personal connection with the stories of these women. To ignore this connection would

be to lie, in the same way that VS Naipaul perceived his representation of his childhood

memories in his collection of stories Miguel Street. He felt he could not disassociate

himself from what he knew was outside his ‘ childhood view’. His adult knowledge

coloured his work (Jack 2007, 5), and so, too, does my truth colour my work.

One of the main themes that surfaced in the Balkan conflict was the disharmony

between Serbians, Bosniaks and Croatians. As my father is a Bosniak and my mother is a

Serbian Catholic, I was able to create characters for my story based on their personal

experiences. It is through my parents’ stories that I was able to create a plot through

which I explored the relative cultural disconnection that resurfaced between these Balkan

cultures after 35 years of peaceful Communist rule. By doing so, I was also able to

explore the dichotomous relationship between Muslims and Christians in a modern

historical context. Throughout Not Like My Mother, I have tried to establish a

framework that highlights the differences and similarities between the two religious

cultures and how those differences and similarities are passed on to the next generation.

This is reflected in the repetitive cycle of abuse the three female characters are exposed

to. It is also reflected in how all sides in the Balkan conflict killed those they perceived to

be the enemy. Both Anika and Muhammed abuse their children. These similarities cross

cultural truths, but also individual truths based on the perceptions and individual morals

of each character.

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To my mind, one of the reasons the Balkan conflict escalated into genocide, was

the inability of generations to let go of past hurts and acknowledge the veracity of their

competing individual truths. Each culture has retained stories of past conflicts from

when the region was first settled, and then invaded by the Turkish Ottoman Empire or

the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The maintenance of these narratives reflects our need to

connect with the past and our ancestors, and our desire for a concrete cultural identity

that can be lived whether through the accumulation of land lost to previous invasions or

through the ability to freely practise one’s chosen religion. I suggest that it is this

connection with our identity that determines our truth. In Not Like My Mother, Ivo’s

knowledge of previous Balkan conflicts informs his opinion of the Serbians; it is through

his stories that he passes on this perception or individual truth to his nephews. Similarly,

Azis, while acknowledging all the Balkan cultures are at fault, fails to realise he too passes

on the culture of conflict through abusing his own son, Muhammed.

(a) Finding my authorial voice

It was unlikely that I would be able to remain objective in writing Not Like My Mother. I

cared too much about the politics in the Balkans, was outraged by the genocide that had

occurred and the lack of response by the rest of the world.

The novel began years ago when my parents and grandparents told me stories

about their pasts. These stories remained vivid in my mind for years. I began drafting the

stories from my memory. In revising the work it was evident that my memory did not

provide the detail necessary to make the narratives fuse. I needed more facts, so I

researched the history of the Balkans, the eruption of World War II, the period of peace

under Tito’s 35-year rule, and, finally, the downfall of Yugoslavia under the reign of

Milosevic. But there were still gaps.

I conducted a series of interviews with my parents who relayed, in more detail,

their life stories and those of their parents. In comparing the transcripts, discrepancies

30

became evident. While subsequent interviews with my maternal grandparents helped to

fill in the gaps, their memories were vague. Time had sucked their anecdotes from their

minds. My paternal grandparents had died many years before I started the project and I

relied heavily on mine and my father’s memories of them. I attempted to emulate

Garner’s technique in representing a variety of truths through direct transcripts from the

interviews I conducted and on researching the former Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars.

However, as Frey found, relying on memories left me vulnerable to my perception of

those memories and interpreting them within the narrative as such.

This compilation of truths moulded the person I have become and influenced the

identity of my characters. Anika and Muhammed fled the oppression of Tito’s rule,

seeking a freer world in Australia, fearing conflict would eventually rise again from the

tainted Balkan soil. The paradox of their need to escape the conflict of their world only

to carry it into their personal lives reflects the personal and private impact of being

exposed to abuse and conflict; how culture and identity are passed on through

generations.

In my research, I also drew on statements made by victims brought forward as

witnesses at the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague: horrific accounts of rape and abuse.

It was important to me not to soften these accounts and dishonour the reality of the

victims’ experiences, but I also became aware of the need to present the details in a way,

which would not deter the reader from continuing on the journey of the story.

Professional analysis of my draft provided the feedback that my graphic recounting of

the horrors which occurred in the Balkan wars—information sourced from transcripts

from the tribunal, refugee letters and stories recounted by refugees—would scare readers

away and I needed to tone the facts down in order to tell the story.

Unlike Frey, I do not present my work as an example of pure memoir or non-

fiction. It is Creative Nonfiction, a genre in which fact and fiction can be mixed to

varying degrees. While I have tried to emulate Garner’s technique of providing clear

31

demarcation lines between fact and fiction, I found it often detracted from the narrative

and read as journalism, or sounded didactic. As a result, I attempted to weave facts into

the characters’ dialogues. I found this technique was more subtle and did not interrupt

the narrative flow, such as in the following example:

She looked at the plaque that had been erected in honour of the Duke and those killed during World War I. My God, she thought, it was my people who started the First World War. Guilt welled up inside her.

“Why did he kill them?” “The same reason they are stirring up trouble now.

The Black Hand is a nationalist group intent on recovering land the Serbians lost to Turkey during the Ottoman Empire invasion. When the Turks lost control of Bosnia and Herzegovina during their war with Russia, control of the area was handed to Austria. The Serbs weren’t happy; they felt the land should have been handed back to them.” (Alagic 297, 2008)

The authorial framework that I have established is a relationship with the truths

portrayed in the text. I do not profess it to be everyone’s truth, as this can never be

achieved due to different individual perceptions, but what I do propose is that my direct

cultural link can provide a more truthful insight into the working minds of the characters

within Not Like My Mother than perhaps a novelist. I understand the Balkan people; I

have come to understand why my parents were abusive. My personal connection and

living experiences within these truths provide a degree of authority. However, I am under

no illusions that a reader will also perceive this information as being a universal truth. In

the end, a writer can present their perception of the truth, but has no control over the

reader’s interpretation of that truth.

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6 CONCLUSION

In attempting to identify ways in which a writer might negotiate between the larger truth

and their personal authorial truth in writing a work of Creative Nonfiction, I have tried

to construct a framework within Not Like My Mother, which clearly indicates to the

reader that while some of the content rings true, creative licence has been taken by the

writer in an attempt to achieve an authorial truth and larger truth. While these truths may

not necessarily be every reader’s truth, hopefully the reader will be able to identify with

some of the larger truths in the story.

The various genres that incorporate fact and fiction, such as: New Journalism,

Memoir, Autobiography, ‘Creative’ Essay, and Creative Nonfiction (Brien 2000), have all

struggled with similar problems. New Journalism and Creative Nonfiction report on a

subjective truth through narrative. While novels and poems also deal with problematic

techniques and ethics, the author does not purport the work to be true. When a writer

claims even part of the work is based on truth, the ethics of perception and

representation of truth need to be dealt with carefully.

Because of my limited access to facts, I have been unable to quote directly from

transcripts, as Garner was able to. While the general story has similarities to other Balkan

stories, Not Like My Mother is not non-fiction. It is an amalgamation of fact with fiction

in which I have negotiated between my own authorial truth and a larger truth which

encompasses cultural and religious truths not limited by geographical boundaries.

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7 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Andric, I. 2000. The Damned Yard and Other Stories, Beograd: Dereta. Andric, I. 1977. The Bridge on the Drina, The University of Chicago Press. Aristotle. 1991. The Art of Rhetoric. London: Penguin Books. Arnold, J. 2007. Meeting the Platypus: When facts equals fiction, TEXT, Volume 11,

No. 2. http://www.textjournal.com.au/oct07/arnold.htm (Accessed November 15, 2007).

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