Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction

National Book Award winner Barrett (Natural History) expounds on her approach to historical fiction in this edifying meditation. She argues that while getting the facts right is important, writers’ paramount concern should be capturing the intangible feeling of what it was like to live through a particular era, and she recounts how she read early 20th-century medical texts about tuberculosis and accounts of Americans who fought in WWI while developing her novel, The Air We Breathe. Reading widely can lead to unexpected sources of inspiration, Barrett contends, discussing how she discovered the 19th-century British physicist Oliver Lodge, around whom she built the short story “The Ether of Space,” while researching a different piece. She warns against “dutiful adherence” to the historical record, positing that fiction writers should focus less on bringing historical figures to life and more on rendering them “ambiguous” and “mysterious” enough to serve as vehicles to explore broader themes. Barrett’s reflections on her process provide glimpses of a master at work, and she supports her observations with sharp analysis of how other authors tackle historical fiction (“Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell succeeds so well in part because in addition to being absolutely, obdurately himself, he also illuminates the processes of power”). It’s a bracing inquiry into the purpose of fiction and its relationship with truth. (Feb.)