True Stories, Well Told

June 30, 2014
This aptly titled collection pulled from the archives of Creative Nonfiction magazine includes essays on subjects that range from the humorous—Sonya Huber learns to let go of hatred by meditating on an infant Dick Cheney in giraffe pajamas—to the painfully incisive, such as Toi Derricotte’s examination of the behaviors she learned from her abusive father. If the only common thread here is genre, the book raises the question: what is creative nonfiction? “Like pornography, you don’t need a definition,” jokes Susan Orlean in the introduction. Editor Gutkind contributes a history of the genre and recounts founding the magazine in the closing essay. The mission of the magazine and, by extension, this book, is to give readers the “core and fiber of the genre” and thereby define creative nonfiction by example. The contributors, including Caitlyn Horrocks, Carolyn Forché, and Harrison Scott Key, and others, effectively create narrative intimacy. Moments of vulnerability will hit home with readers and bind these disparate essays into an emotionally coherent whole.

July 1, 2014
An engaging anthology of creative nonfiction from the editors at Creative Nonfiction magazine.The magazine is now celebrating its 20th birthday, so when founding editor Gutkind (For the Love of Baseball: A Celebration of the Game that Connects Us All, 2013, etc.) and managing editor Fletcher went to pick a handful of wildflowers from this bounty to fashion this collection, they had plenty to choose from. Many of the pieces have an experimental quality in that they catch something elemental from an unexplored angle as they venture onto shaky ground. The spiciest take no pains to disguise the process of getting there: Readers share the sensory information coming in and witness the writer's brain decoding and shaping the material, all subjective and unlike any other, making their own local color as both participant and observer and changing their way of being in the world. As a style, creative nonfiction has yet to be thoroughly pinned down; it remains simultaneously furtive and dodgy, versatile and as inclusive as a hug from Walt Whitman. Longtime New Yorker contributor Susan Orlean-who better to write the introduction?-makes important suggestions to writers considering creative nonfiction: "Don't over-prepare. Be willing to jump into stories naked; you'll listen harder and learn more authentically. On the other hand, do over-report. Follow bits of the story that aren't quite on topic; you'll probably find something unexpected and fascinating." Other contributors include Sonya Huber, Gordon Lish, Toi Derricotte and Louise DeSalvo. In Vanity Fair, James Wolcott declared that creative nonfiction is "a sickly transfusion, whereby the weakling personal voice of sensitive fiction is inserted into the beery carcass of nonfiction." This anthology proves otherwise.Whether inducing tears or raucous laughter, all the pieces are inviting, inquisitive and attentive-and sure to spark plenty of imaginations.

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