Biographies, histories, and memoirs…
All good ones avoid the spoiler-alert phenomenon when the reader already knows the real-world facts about what went on. That they are non-fiction doesn’t matter—they still have to be an interesting story to maintain my attention. Pages and pages of droll facts cause me to skip just as much as excess world-building in a sci-fi novel or excess narrative in a mystery (those are often the same thing). And I really don’t want a freak show like famous person X having a two-headed cousin who married an orangutan.
As a fiction writer, you might think I just read fiction in the genres I write—mystery, thriller, and sci-fi, and their combinations. Or, you might think I just read any genere fiction. You’d be wrong. For example, because I once was a scientist, I can read technical books—I still peek inside them occasionally. They’re often filled with history too. I once owned a three-volume work on spread spectrum techniques (advanced communications theory). As a reference, I’d skip around in it—funny how technical writers think they’re organized when they’re not. But I thoroughly enjoyed the introductory part that considered the history where I was reminded that the idea first appeared in a Theodore Sturgeon sci-fi short story (yes, the same guy who coined Sturgeon’s Law) and that Hedy Lamarr, the actress, did research on it during the war.
OK, I don’t read technical books for fun per se, and never did, although I’m quick to say some are more fun than others. But I’ll read a good biography, history, and memoir for fun…and maybe never finish it if it isn’t entertaining in some way. A good biography gets into a person’s mind and ferrets out the reasons for her or his actions. That’s especially true of an autobiography. I avoid Hollywood and other celebs’ like a plague, though. Most don’t say anything of interest compared to Churchill and Eisenhower (two bios I read last year) or propose anything that will better people’s lives (like Bernie Sander’s Our Revolution). Scientists are particularly bad at autobiographies—your best bet is to read their biographies (I just finished one about Fermi).
Frankly, I don’t know the difference between memoir and autobiography, so I’ll just lump memoirs with them. Histories are generally more fun because they often paint on a bigger canvas, but you have to be careful—they can be as boring as camel snot and just as offensive. Moreover, the author only puts in his history what he wants to and often gives it all a biased slant. The aphorism “victors rewrite history” has a lot of truth in it. The Russians were famous for doing it, trying to convince everyone that they’d invented everything worthwhile, and those who did it were great men to be venerated by the Proletariat (yeah, the commies were sexist).
Continuing that line, it seems like NASA engineers are also guilty of rewriting history—OK, maybe not creating lies by rewriting history but creating lies of omission. I offer the recent film and book Hidden Figures as evidence. I knew women were “computers” at Los Alamos in the early days—the excuse was to give them something to do while their hubbies saved mankind; I didn’t know they were also in NASA—better said, I just assumed they were—and many of them were black! All the latter has been omitted from most histories of the space program. Of course, there are many other examples: Watson’s and Crick’s histories of the discovery of DNA were certainly different. Where’s the truth?
The advantage of fiction, at least when readers know it’s fiction, is that no one expects it to be real. When dealing with biographies, histories, and memoirs, we expect the author not to be lying. And then there are the books that exist in the twilight between fiction and non-fiction. How much of The Days of the Jackal or The Odessa File is real? France’s Algerian War really existed and the Nazi’s did have an Odessa File. Would a native Hawaiian accept Michener’s Hawaii as gospel? Not any Hawaiian I’ve met!
Clancy says fiction has to seem real. Of course, he probably never read any sci-fi, so we’ll excuse him. But should we go after authors who are loose with the facts in their biographies, histories, or memoirs? You bet! But because they might be dead, you’re better off going after them only in your mind where you have read books on the same subjects that contradict their stories. Of course, you then have to decide who’s really telling the truth!
And this brings me to fake news on the internet. Anyone who blindly accepts what anyone says on the internet as truth needs her or his head examined. In fact, the best procedure for a sane, rational human being who peruses internet content is to assume it’s false until proven otherwise. I apply that protocol to biographies, histories, and memoirs and equally to anything that I read online. That includes Wikipedia, by the way, which is why I still have the Encyclopedia Britannica and other references works on my bookshelves and consult online versions other than Wikipedia. The X-Files mantra is a good one: Trust no one!
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Coming soon! Gaia and the Goliaths. Climate control and environmental issues are on everyone’s mind right now. They’re on Chen and Castilblanco’s minds too when they’re called in to solve the murder of an environmental activist. A Big Apple case soon becomes national and international, though, with Russia and an old nemesis of the detectives become involved in a multi-country hunt for the activist’s boyfriend. This is #7 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.” It will be available in all ebook formats, as are the first six books in the series. Don’t miss it.
In libris libertas!
