Assignment # Two: Toward a definition of CNF

The following are my ruminations as I continue to consider a definition of “Creative Nonfiction.”

I have been writing creative nonfiction for years without knowing that there was such a thing.  I wrote a 75,000 word manuscript about my early experiences as a lawyer.  I changed my name for fear of being Googled—major skeletons lurk in my past, many of them publicly documented. [I also liked the literary quality of my pen name—“Lewis Lerner."]  But each of my characters is real, and I use their real names—cowardly of me.  So, I began the “Afterword” with,

“Is this fiction or memoir?  The narrator’s name is fiction; other than a few minor exceptions, each other name is real.  The exceptions are either because I can’t recall the real name or I want to avoid confusing the reader by mentioning peripheral characters with similar names.  A few minor events are consolidated or condensed.  Other “fictions” may result from faulty memory.  I have tried, however, not to engage in what Tim O’Brien lauds as the benefits of fiction—describing what might have happened or what should have happened.”

I did not know at the time that I was grappling with the central issue of CNF.

I wrote the “Afterword” because I was entering the manuscript in a competition in a category called “Creative Nonfiction,” again, not knowing what the heck that was.

What is bothering me about everything I am considering—the four stories from week one, the Lott and Gutkind essays, my own essays and stories—is that all of them are autobiographical or deal with the author’s self.  Before taking this class, my concept of CNF was that it was more broad—that  it might include journalism—reporting about events, as in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” or “Almost Famous”[oops—fiction by Cameron Crowe—I Googled it]  or “Shattered Glass.”  What about Norman Mailer covering the Garry Gilmore story in “The Executioner’s Song,” or Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”  Or how about the Star Ledger’s sport columnist, Jerry Isenberg’s writing about the Kentucky Derby or the career of Muhammad Ali?

I guess my question is, Is CNF limited to memoir?

Parenthetically, in my search for the “truth” regarding my own memoir, I did some research to find the name of the judge sitting in Hunterdon County during the winter of 1978.  I finally contacted the president of the Hunterdon County Historical Society, who gave me the names of the three judges who fit the bill—as soon as he mention Thomas Beetel, I not only remembered that he was the one, but that I had pronounced his name as John, Paul, George and Ringo and had been admonished that it was Buh Tel.

Reacting to Gutkin’s suggestion, I have shared my manuscript with some of the people I mention—a few have provided valuable insight and feedback—but I have not sent it to Herb Stern, a judge I describe extensively, and I think, in a flattering way.  But I am worried about his reaction.  I sent a copy to Barry Albin, an associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, who was a friend of mine back in the day.  It is a year later; he has not responded. Another real character I described as “having a bad complexion;” thinking that she might someday read the story, I changed the description to a “ruddy complexion.” 

OK, I accept Lott’s rambling definition.  But in response to Professor Chandler’s question of what is left out, I would assert that well written journalism that uses the novelist’s techniques in retelling a true, third person account, ought to be included.