Fiction is a Lie That Reveals the Truth

Why do we care about fiction? Isn’t the actual, physical world interesting enough? I was forced to think about this recently when I participated in an author panel with astrophysicist Adam Frank (Light of the Stars) and journalist Peter Lovenheim (The Attachment Effect). Given the company I was keeping, it suddenly seemed prudent to ask, why do we bother to read novels? And why do novelists insist on making things up?

After some careful consideration, the answer came to me in a flash: we fiction writers make things up because the real world often doesn’t make sense! People act in ways that confuse us. Events from our pasts remain veiled in mystery many years after they’ve occurred. And so, we write to make sense of our own lives. And ironically, the more we make up, the clearer things become.

Funnily enough, many people dislike this explanation. In the months since my debut novel Good Neighbors was published, many readers have asked me, “Is your book true?” Or, “Are these characters ‘real?’” Despite my repeated explanations that the story and characters are figments of my imagination, many people are disappointed to hear this. One reader angrily asked me why I would bother to make up something so negative? Another friend insisted she saw remnants of my childhood in the artichoke dip featured in one of the book’s party scenes. (I don’t remember any such dip in my mother’s home.) Some people just flat out don’t believe me.

Why do so many people need to know that a novel is ‘true?’ What about fiction is so threatening that readers feel let down when told that the tale is imaginary? My suspicion is that people don’t want to break their heart for the wrong reasons. They don’t want to invest their time and energy in something that didn’t actually happen. In short, they don’t want to be ‘tricked.’ But the truth is, a good novel, and a good novelist, does deliver truth–emotional truth–even if everything in the book is completely made up. Case in point . . .

Good Neighbors tells the story of a group of suburban friends who believe they are ‘like family.’ When one of the couples—Gene and Paige Edwards—adopt a young girl from Russia—the group’s loyalty and morality is soon called into question. Are the Edwards unkind to their new daughter? Or is she a difficult child with hidden destructive tendencies? As tensions rise, friendships slowly unravel and neighbor Nicole Westerhof becomes determined to ‘rescue’ the girl from her difficult family circumstances.

Why this story? What was I trying to figure out? For starters, I knew I was interested in exploring group dynamics. I had already published a short story entitled The Red Bird about a group of moms in a playgroup who are struggling with their identity. I knew I wasn’t done with this material and had more I wanted to figure out. And so, I wrote about a seemingly perfect neighborhood in an imaginary Boston suburb. The story is local, but I believe the events could happen just about anywhere. The novel is about the kind of fast, intense friendships so many of us make when our kids are young, and explores the very real pressure to keep up appearances, to pretend that everything is always all right.

When I set out to write Good Neighbors, I knew also wanted to explore denial, especially the place where denial morphs into something more dangerous. I wanted to navigate the crevasse where everyday behavior becomes tinged with deception and I wanted readers to stay in that uncomfortable place and question their own good intentions and cowardice. I wanted them to ask themselves what they would do if they suspected their neighbors were subtly mistreating, or even abusing, a child.

Finally, Good Neighbors is a novel about parenting. I was a youngish mother when I started Good Neighbors and was constantly asking myself, “Am I doing it right? Am I f**cking up?” Meanwhile, all around me were parents that looked perfect from afar, but whom I sensed weren’t giving their kids the emotional support they needed. I wanted to believe that their children, as well as my own, would be okay, regardless of how well they were nurtured, but I had a sneaky suspicion that this wasn’t true. Writing about a large cast of imperfect characters helped me uncover what I really thought about nature vs. nurture, and as well as the important but ultimately limited role of community in raising healthy children.

By the time Good Neighbors was published last February, I had spent six years expanding its story lines, deepening the drama, and grappling with my characters’ motivations. With each pass of the manuscript, I continued to refine my ideas about parenting and community, about fate and resilience, and about forgiveness and lying. By the end, I answered my own questions about all of these subjects, even if my answers weren’t at all what I hoped they would be when I started. My imagination took me where my rational mind couldn’t. It’s the reason I write and the reason I read, and I can’t imagine a life without it.

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Joanne Serling’s debut novel, GOOD NEIGHBORS, was published by Twelve/Grand Central publishing in February 2018. She is a graduate of Cornell University and studied and taught fiction at The Writers Studio in New York City. Previously, she worked in women’s magazines, high tech public relations and as Director of Public Affairs for American Express.  She lives in New Jersey with her husband and children and is at work on her second book.

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About GOOD NEIGHBORS

In an idyllic suburb, four young families quickly form a neighborhood clique, their friendships based on little more than the ages of their children and a shared sense of camaraderie. When one of the couples, Paige and Gene Edwards, adopt a four-year-old girl from Russia, the group’s loyalty and morality is soon called into question. Are the Edwards unkind to their new daughter? Or is she a difficult child with hidden destructive tendencies?

As the seams of the group friendship slowly unravel, neighbor Nicole Westerhof finds herself drawn further into the life of the adopted girl, forcing Nicole to re-examine the deceptive nature of her own family ties, and her complicity in the events unfolding around her.

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers