| I was in a brisk discussion about whether a woman | | | | Maggie can't even change a diaper without coming on |
| 'would' or 'would not' leave her wayward husband | | | | a dizzy spell. Woman has eaten Beau alive. Like some |
| when a man interrupted and said, "But he's not real! It's | | | | vampire sucking the juice out of him. You cut that girl |
| fiction!" It was time to end the talk before I began my | | | | open and you'd find Beau's blood pumping her heart." I |
| ten minute soliloquy that would have sent everyone in | | | | love those lines. Maggie's a woman who takes female |
| the kitchen for one too many drinks before going | | | | caretaking to a new level and helps me see through |
| home. I knew the difficult husband in The Trading of | | | | myself and to my husband. |
| Ken was not real because he fell out of my head and | | | | Fiction makes dry subjects like history, science and |
| ended up on paper over a year's time as I had fun | | | | anthropology exciting and easier to learn. Readers |
| punching him, his wife and girlfriend about. That's | | | | willingly enter the world of writers eager to learn and |
| exactly the point. Fiction has helped me put life in | | | | enjoy a time in history (or the future) that school |
| fascinating perspectives that allegedly truthful | | | | routinely fettered with weights. Consider the current |
| biographies, gooey memoirs, self-righteous | | | | popularity of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini or |
| improvement and dry scientific report studies can't | | | | The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. They are both |
| touch. Imagine: | | | | storylines we've heard before and see alluded to in the |
| Fiction makes judging human nature and gossip | | | | news everyday, but fiction gives an inside, human |
| acceptable. Sunday school and ethics lessons can be | | | | aspect to subjects we otherwise treat coldly and |
| overlooked when we dissect the behavior of | | | | brush off. |
| Flaubert's Madam Bovary. We can be arrogantly | | | | Fiction invites imagination and insight. We come to |
| appalled, giving approval to our cherished ideas. | | | | fiction ready to believe and enjoy. Routine defenses |
| Without apology or deference to a human being's | | | | and the usual 'deaf ear' are diminished as we let |
| frailties we can smack our opinion about like a tennis | | | | words and the stories of strangers absorb us. Like |
| ball hoping to aim and hurt. Or an author can give us | | | | children taking in data from everywhere we are more |
| that information on a character that forces our play; | | | | vulnerable to the suggestions of a creative deft author. |
| makes us look again and reconsider. Madam Bovary | | | | It's one thing for the currently popular judgmental Dr. |
| 'loves without guile' to gain sympathy and twist our | | | | Knoweverything to say once more we are clueless |
| presumptions. Then we can smack our ideas against | | | | about religion's part in our life. It is another thing to read |
| the wall again because they're not based on 'real' | | | | Barbara Kingsolver in The Poisonwood Bible, "I could |
| people and we can dissect them like an orange. | | | | never work out whether we were to view religion as |
| Fiction can be embellished and dressed up for drama. | | | | a life-insurance policy or a life sentence." Regardless |
| James Frey, author of memoir A Million Little Pieces, | | | | of your view this statement is an invitation to define |
| could add a word or two here Sociology, psychology, | | | | what you think. |
| philosophy can all be dry as melba toast. Even a well | | | | Fiction entertains without expectation. Fiction gives |
| written memoir can seem sanitized or a diatribe | | | | grace and space from the workday world. We can |
| against all enemies. Very often they're engaging stories | | | | and do enjoy a mini-vacation with a pal who doesn't |
| and an occasional deep tidbit. In her memoir Two or | | | | expect us to do anything but sit back and have fun. |
| Three Things I Know for Sure, Dorothy Allison states, | | | | Readers define fun in many fiction genres from |
| "Women lose their lives not knowing they can do | | | | science and fantasy to sweet romance, but that's just |
| something different. Men eat themselves up believing | | | | the point. |
| they have to be the things they have been made." All | | | | With fiction we're not required to study, learn or even |
| very lovely and clear enough to understand. Fiction | | | | pay close attention. We're invited to take from it what |
| overrides polite society to talk from the gut. In Bastard | | | | we will and enjoy the ride. That's what's special about |
| Out of Carolina, Allison hands us a whirlwind, "Seven | | | | fiction. No final exams from teachers, scientists, |
| children! Bad enough Alma's got so many, but at least | | | | historians or social gurus; only invitations. |
| she knows how to keep hers fed and clean. That little | | | | |