Russell Lynes, the former managing editor of Harper’s magazine, once said “Every good journalist has a novel in him – which is an excellent place for it.” So where do I come off thinking that my first novel, A Place You Can’t Escape, is any different? Why shouldn’t it have stayed in there next to my pancreas or someplace?
Lynes says that even good journalists should ignore the urge to write a novel, and as a reporter I didn’t win any prizes. So it’s doubly presumptuous to think a marginal reporter could get his head around fiction.
But I do think that journalists and novelists share an iron bond – they like good stories that tell the truth. They also understand there are different ways to do both.
Journalists aren’t allowed to make stuff up. They write about real people and real events They use quotes that people give them. They turn up facts and place them in context. But despite their reverence for and reliance on facts, the best that most journalists can aspire to is what’s been called a provisional truth. It’s that day’s truth, accurate at the time but subject to amendment in follow-up stories as new information emerges.
Novelists do make stuff up; it’s their stock in trade. Characters. Dialogue. Events. Conflicts. Sometimes entire worlds. What’s stunning about good fiction writers is that by making stuff up they help us see abiding, not provisional, truths. There is nothing provisional about what is revealed in Crime and Punishment, The Shipping News, The Color Purple.
I spent a long time writing and editing stories the journalist’s way, hoping each day to help my audiences arrive at truths that helped them live their lives a little better. But when I retired I made myself a promise – I would try to tell stories the novelist’s way. I even adopted a pen name: Nat Richmond. The past nine years have been humbling.
A Place You Can’t Escape is on Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Place-You-Cant-Escape-Novel-ebook/dp/B0D79S4FJW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TJRYHYM2M4FD&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2M7rD-PdB3-Q0sfzwnR-my4HWI_LrOkMpDc7q-z0ByHGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.PkfB_byW1Vt6Tnrk4DrShYCldXJbWmILjW2JVkxdiGE&dib_tag=se&keywords=A+Place+You+Can%27t+Escape&qid=1724095320&s=books&sprefix=a+place+you+can%27t+escape%2Cstripbooks%2C348&sr=1-1, in case you would like to decide for yourself whether a better place for it is inside, as Russell Lynes said.