While salivating my way through the most recent issue of Creative Nonfiction (the “food issue”), I encountered a discussion (some might say THE discussion) that continues to define (plague?) creative nonfiction writing in general. I am of course referring to the issue of accuracy. The old argument goes like this: on one hand, this is NON-fiction, so everything must be accurate, wholly accurate, and verifiable. On the other, this is CREATIVE, so bending, slanting, embellishing is just fine as long as the spirit of truth is upheld.
This debate is not engaged directly in the pages of issue 41, but rears its head in two places. There is this, in an interview with Ruth Reichl, restaurant critic, former editor at Gourmet, and nonfiction writer:
You can’t [make things up in a memoir] but you can combine things… Certainly in “Tender at the Bone,” for instance, the best story is the one about my brother Bob’s engagement party. It’s a wonderful story, all true, but it’s really two parties conflated into one….. Nothing in there is made up, but it makes a much better story put all together in one place. I think one of the great things you get to do with memoir is selectively cherry-pick your memories.