Fiction + Fact = Faction

Self-designated struggling writer, R.J. Mangahas has a nice round-up of the latest scandals in fake books in Out in WriteField. I'm not referring to the fake books that singers use (lyrics-only song sheets). I mean the James Frey type of a million little lies presented as the truth. Like the also pseudo-memoirs by Misha Defonseca and Margaret Seltzer, that's what I'm talkin' about.

I would disagree with Mangahas' statement that, "In a lot of people's eyes, there is an unwritten understanding between them and the author of the memoir that the events are true and accurate as possible." That may be a misconception many writers and readers used to have about memoir writing. I doubt the reading public is that naive any longer.

I submit that writers like Frey, Defonseca and Seltzer are perpetuating a genre that perhaps began with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I call that confounding of fiction and facts "faction". Perhaps bookstores, publishers and critics should establish this as a legitimate literary form. After all, memoir is really elaboration of biography. Faction is more elaboration of memoir.