DOCUMENTARY FICTION: AUTHENTICITY AND ILLUSION

The Historian. By Elizabeth Kostova. New York: Little, Brown, 2005. Pp. 642. $25.95.

The Lake, The River & The Other Lake. By Steve Amick. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. Pp. 365. $25.

The main difficulty when attempting to define documentary fiction is an apparent contradiction of terms. In its most common usage, the word "documentary" refers to either a film or television program that relies upon interviews with experts or witnesses, newspaper accounts, court transcripts, or other factual data to inform viewers. In short, when we talk about documentaries, we usually mean a genre that aspires to tell a "true story." To apply this concept to fiction, that liar's craft, seems a bit perplexing at first. After all, in its own common usage the term "fiction" denotes the opposite of truth, a fabrication, something sprung fully from the imagination.

While defining truth in fiction requires an essay in itself, to better understand the emerging popularity of documentary fiction as a literary genre—a genre that intentionally blurs the line between fact and fiction—it's worth considering these three points:

Fiction writers use what's around them—a gesture, a fragment of speech, a quirk of personality—as the raw materials for story. Notorious gawkers and eavesdroppers, writers certainly aren't limited to their own experiences, often drawing upon overheard stories, newscasts, magazine and newspaper articles, historical accounts, and other works of nonfiction to develop ideas. To assume that characters or plots spring fully formed from the author's imagination is to deny that the author, even the most imaginative or secluded, is a citizen of the world. While the autobiographical elements may be submerged to the point of being unrecognizable in a story or novel, ask a writer where the idea for a certain piece of fiction came from and the reply will almost always reference some actual event, person, or place. For example, I once wrote a story based on a newspaper article I wrote about a rash of stolen lawn gnomes; another time, a glimpse of a man dressed in a suit, pedaling a girl's bike with a case of beer dangling from the handlebars sparked a short story. In both cases, the plots and characters verged far from the actual events and into the realm of the imagination, yet the kernel of fact that remained in each is, arguably, the first step in creating verisimilitude for the reader.

Similarly, the author needs only to create this sense of authenticity, the appearance of being true, to gain the reader's trust. It's almost easier to discuss how the bubble of verisimilitude gets punctured than how it's maintained, since its maintenance depends on innumerable consistencies and details, not to mention aspects such as voice and theme, which often succeed on the basis of the specific rules established in the work itself. Therefore, the rules are the price of admission. Setting up inconsistent rules or breaking the rules of the story often jeopardizes the perception of a story's truthfulness, frustrating the reader and bursting the bubble of verisimilitude. As long as the writer is consistent, however, the truth can be whatever the author wants the reader to accept.

And it is precisely this subjective truth established within the bounds of a story that moves readers to choose fiction. When someone picks up A Farewell To Arms instead of a historical account of the First World War, the reader expects to be submerged in the interiority of the events, to gain an insider's perspective on the experience of being a soldier while history unfurls itself in the background. Hemingway described the authenticity found in novels as follows: "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you." Narrative autobiographies or first-hand accounts of history come closest to approximating the experience found in fiction but by their very definition are limited by the events. These accounts are hemmed in by facts, unable to examine the bigger truths, those of the human condition. Narrative uniquely translates this experience to readers, inviting one to inhabit the life on the page as if it were a version of one's own. This experience is one that readers still desire, even in the Information Age. However, to meet the particular expectations of readers in our time, the modes of constructing verisimilitude in fiction may be undergoing some changes.

Take, for example, two novels by Ann Arbor authors published in 2005: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and The Lake, the River and the Other Lake by Steve Amick. Each novel incorporates false documents in its narrative strategy, creating a level of interplay between the text and reader while also lending a heightened sense of authenticity to the events described.

The effect is particularly chilling in Kostova's novel, which, through letters and documents, follows generations of historians pressed into pursuing the origins of the Dracula myth through history, to a certain undead prince of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler. The Historian centers on the idea that in order for evil to exist, it must secure a place in history, that the documentation, maintenance, and dissemination of historical facts regarding evil engenders its power. In this light, the very documents we are asked to examine in the course of reading The Historian become slightly more sinister. The novel is narrated by an unidentified historian, writing from the future, as indicated in a Note to the Reader dated January 15, 2008; as it unfolds, the novel transforms into a sort of historical document itself that has somehow, perhaps at some risk, found its way into our hands. As a result, through a cumulative effect that crescendos with the plot, the false documents in The Historian serve to underscore one of the major thematic elements of the book: the loss of innocence at best, and at worst, the horror lurking in the permanency of knowledge.

In The Lake, The River and the Other Lake, the false documents contribute more subtly to the theme of insiders versus outsiders in the fictional Michigan town of Weneshkeen, located on Lake Michigan. The events of the 2001 tourist season, from May to August, are told through a chorus of voices: lifelong residents, transplants, "summer people," "boat people" (rich tourists anchored in the marina), and "Fudgies" (the sightseeing, fudge-buying, point-and-shoot crowd). Throughout the season, stories of belonging and isolation crop up among the residents of Weneshkeen, whether it's lifelong resident Roger Drinkwater, a seven-eights Chippewa, ex-Navy Seal, waging a subversive war for ownership of Lake Meenigeesis against flocks of jet skis; or teenaged "summer person" Mark Starkey embarking on a risk-filled romantic relationship with "boat person" Courtney Banes; or longtime cherry farmer Von Bushberger warily negotiating his feelings toward his family as it becomes increasingly blended; or the newly retired Reverend Reecher, grieving for his dead wife, fighting loneliness and seeking solace in his new friend, teenager and "summer person" Kimberly Lasco, who introduces him to the Internet. The complexities of these and other storylines weaving together and coming apart creates a mosaic of place for Weneshkeen. The documents utilized in the telling of these stories—notes, e-mails, transcripts of radio programs, top ten lists, letters—combine to establish an almost anthropological understanding of the way the people in this place communicate with each other. The effect is one of being both on the outside and inside, of navigating one's way through the private thoughts and correspondences of those who call Weneshkeen home, if only for a season.

Before examining the appeals of documentary fiction in each novel, it's worth noting that while the genre speaks to readers in the Information Age, it has deeper roots. Some works by Theodore Dreiser, Émile Zola, John Dos Passos, and James T. Farrell can be classified as documentary fiction. Moreover, although documentary fiction may owe its origins to the epistolary novel, it differentiates itself by using a variety of documents beyond letters and by using them for a different purpose, one that often reaches beyond the confines of the story and into the realm of evidence. As a result, the onus is on the reader to assemble meaning from the evidence provided, whether it comes in the form of letters, e-mails, transcripts, research papers, excerpted interviews or any number of "factual documents" produced in the text. The variety and number of documents amplify the effect in documentary fiction, in essence changing the role of the reader from passive observer to active participant. Here is the document, the author seems to be saying, make of it what you will. One by-product of this process seems to be that false documents, by presenting the "facts" of a narration in such a way that the role of creating meaning is handed over to the reader, brings the reader a degree closer to the role of author.

Including false documents in a text provides a greater sense of verisimilitude, implying that the reader holds in his hands a primary source, an artifact. In The Lake, The River and The Other Lake, e-mails, notes, letters, jots on a PalmPilot replicate the given technology's mode of communication, or the way we write now. E-mail shorthand shows up in messages (HHOJ for "ha ha only joking" and BTW for "by the way"). The font changes to Courier to mimic e-mail correspondence. A character writes $$ on his PalmPilot as a note to himself. Even the emoticon makes several appearances. In each case, not only the content, but the style of communication is presented in an authentic manner and appears on the page as it would in daily life. As a result, the reader feels like an insider in the communication that passes between the people of Weneshkeen.

In The Historian, the documents are presented in italics or sometimes appear as their own chapters. Moreover, instead of being used to replicate the mode of communication, the documents appear in a more integrated and patterned way and serve to widen a central theme of the novel, which is the merging of the historical facts about Vlad the Impaler with the common mythology of Dracula. Through the documents, the reader is drawn into the hunt for Dracula along with the protagonist, who stumbles across a mysterious old book in her father's study imprinted with a dragon. Inside the book she finds a letter with the salutation, "My dear and unfortunate successor." Although she only reads a few lines, and those lines are the only ones presented, her interest is piqued. The same goes for the reader. The tone of the letter and her father's reluctance to speak about the matter when she approaches him instills the document with a delicious sense of foreboding. When the same letter appears in full later, the reader is eager to discover the contents. The stories about the book and the letters told by her father provide a background onto which the letters are placed in total, word for word. Coming across these letters in full solidifies the story, providing a text that validates what might otherwise have been tales of fancy told for amusement. The "reality" of the letters, however, and the detail contained within, serves to authenticate the events in both the mind of the protagonist and the reader. More and more letters continue to operate as historical documentation of events as the novel progresses. In addition, a scholarly paper is presented for our consideration, as well as excerpts from folk songs. These false documents heighten the sense of the novel being a researched and documented piece of historical fact, and this theme dovetails nicely with the guiding ideology of the main characters, who, as historians, are driven to meticulously and thoroughly provide factual evidence.

Because of their extra-textuality, false documents are sometimes criticized as affectations, or mere ornamentation. However, if used to move the plot and develop character, false documents, like good dialogue, can serve as an effective craft element. In The Lake, The River and The Other Lake, the e-mail messages exchanged between Reverend Reecher and Kimberly heighten the tension between them. In the shorthand the reader senses the naiveté of one, while the novice mistakes of the other indicate a mawkish insecurity with both the technology and the blossoming friendship. In other documents—a Top Ten list, for example—the reader gains insight into the atmosphere surrounding the police force in Weneshkeen, as well as the playful humor of deputy Janey Struska, the female officer passed over for promotion to sheriff in favor of a male, and an out-of-towner at that. A further example of false documents as craft element is found in the chapter devoted to a transcript from the radio call-in show, "Loveline." The transcript comes complete with trademark crude humor and double entendre, in which Mark's insecurities about his risky sexual relationship with Courtney Banes comes to the forefront. The transcript bathes Mark in a new light. No longer the wisecracking, self-assured kid encountered on the page, but more of a guy out of his league, a nervous, confused kid who only vaguely recognizes himself as the butt of the show's humor. The replication of the speech patterns, the cuttings in and trailings off, serve to bolster the reality of the transcript while also revealing a new side to Mark's relationship with Courtney.

Similarly, in The Historian, letters from various sources take on much of the work of the plot, exposing events of the past, answering questions about characters and ultimately guiding the protagonist toward historical truths surrounding Vlad the Impaler, as well as her own personal history. The letters bridge the distance of history as well, so that with the exception of some antiquated syntax and vocabulary, as one might expect, the letter from Brother Kiril written centuries ago seems to speak directly to the reader. The same goes for letters of fifty or eighty years ago. For several of the characters in The Historian, their particular letter-writing voices are the reader's main way of knowing them. The characters speak to us through time and history, each with a distinct voice and an identifiable personality. Along with the letters presented to reveal character and move the plot, the folk songs and the academic paper presented as documents provide clues to the story. Contained within the lyrics of songs are clues about the folk history—and perhaps actual history—of Vlad the Impaler. The reader discovers these clues along with the characters, and must determine their value in distinguishing fact from fiction. In the case of the academic paper presented in the novel's text, a monk's tale contained therein ends abruptly, leaving the reader to wonder at the mystery and where the story will go next.

While the false documents contained in The Historian and The Lake, The River and The Other Lake blur the line between fact and fiction, the result in both cases is one that deepens the complexities of the narrative. In this blurring, the question of what is a fact or what is truth is interrogated, offering new insights into the theme of each novel. This interrogation is one that readers are becoming increasingly comfortable with, given the premium placed on information and the gradations of reality encountered in advertising and the various media of our time, notably visual media. It follows, then, that postmodern readers would come to appreciate, or even expect, this interrogation on the page as well. By questioning the facts and presenting an illusion of reality, false documents in documentary fiction serve to enhance the traditional aim of verisimilitude, while asking the reader to conceptualize the truth from the perspective of a participant in the narrative, one who interprets the authenticity of information presented. The result, as in Amick's novel, can be a deeper anthropological understanding of characters and place, one that reveals the way we live and communicate now. Or, as in Kostova's novel, the illusion of authenticity found within the documents brings to light the constructed nature of history, or facts, and how every story, even the most ancient and macabre, has at its core a truth that can be searched out and confronted. Both novels, however, use documents to engage the reader in the narrative by evoking that most postmodern of questions, what is real? and by involving the reader in the text on a firsthand basis, as interpreter of facts and creator of meaning.

It's no surprise, then, that documentary fiction is particularly appealing to readers in the Information Age. Arguably, today's readers are more adept at accessing, synthesizing, and utilizing information than perhaps at any other point in history. Therefore, it's no wonder that documents engage the postmodern reader. To be asked to handle primary sources, to unlock meaning and interpret the information as it applies to the story—it's interactive! Furthermore, if we accept that today's society is one of vastly multiplying options when it comes to everything from information to entertainment to consumer products (think the Internet, satellite TV, the toothpaste aisle) and that many of these options allow for customization (think your home page, your TiVo settings, your tartar control for sensitive teeth with whitening power toothpaste) and it's easy to see why interactivity in fiction appeals to readers—it's about us.

Documentary fiction opens the door to a new mode of narrative in which the reader becomes a part of the storytelling, inasmuch as the reader is expected to analyze, contextualize, and draw conclusions from the documents presented. The facts, as they are presented, are open for review, providing a reader with the chance to shape the narrative independent of the author's hand, or at least the illusion of such. Since the documents in many cases have been at least selected, if not created, by the author, the reader still must operate according to the guidance of the author's hand. However, if the reader is willing to accept the rules of the game, the truth of the documents, it can appear as if the blinders had been removed and the raw material of story laid bare. Documentary fiction, then, uses the illusion of facts to enhance the narrative, to provide a greater sense of authenticity, and to allow readers an interactive, insider's view of the story. This interest in the insider's view of narrative is not only a major motivation for reading fiction in the first place, promising a version of knowledge to be discovered only there, but also may be indicative of a change in expectations among readers in the Information Age. Documentary fiction, compared with more traditional modes of storytelling, fulfills the burgeoning desire for interactivity among readers by providing them with in-text documents for analysis and interpretation; the result is a remaking of the reader's role, moving from passive observer to active co-creator, which is not so far away from the role of author.