Truth, Justice, and the American Way
I don't know if I much believe in justice. Not that I don't believe in it as a wonderful ideal. I just think its occurrence is far rarer than we would like to believe. We want to believe crimes occur and the cops get their man. We want to believe if you go to court and are innocent--or guilty--that the jury will see that. But it doesn't happen that way all the time. Money talks. Justice walks.
I want to believe that people, if they really KNEW what happened in Tibet or Darfur, would be spurred to action. I've gotten a hate email or two (or three) enough to know when I raise the issue of the Tibetan Buddhists or the people of Darfur that there are Americans who so loathe the idea of caring about what happens outside our borders . . . "Worry about AMERICANS! Who cares? Go live there if you care so much." So, with that in mind, I want to believe that 38% of the children in the AMERICAN city where I live don't go to bed hungry--but they do. And the problem is worse in the summer when they don't get a free hot lunch at school.
So why bring up all this? Because I have come to realize that what often propels books is the search for truth. You have a cop and he wants to find the murderer. But if it's a murder we don't get to know or care about then it feels procedural. Make it a murder in which the truth was hidden, the real culprit got away, in which someone was framed, and now the reader in invested.
You have a journalist character. There is some story of corporate greed. We read about that every day. But make it about corporate greed in which a whistleblower may have been killed to hide the truth, and now we're doubly invested.
Take it international. If you read the brilliant John Le Carre novel, The Constant Gardener, it was a compelling portrait of grief. At first the book is about one man's search to discover if his wife had a lover when she died. But it becomes a much bigger web with much more dangerous characters before the book is through.
I look at my own novels . . . In The Roofer, Jack Casey is searching for the truth about a man murdered years before--thrown from the roof. It's personal for Jack--that man was his uncle. The person who threw him off, just for kicks, was Ava's father. She knows that. She's always known that. But she searches for a truth in between black and white, in a gray world where she can love her father even though he is a murderer. Ava searches for a truth, too.
So how does the search for truth impact your work? And can we ever really know truth--or just a version of it?
Peace,
E
I want to believe that people, if they really KNEW what happened in Tibet or Darfur, would be spurred to action. I've gotten a hate email or two (or three) enough to know when I raise the issue of the Tibetan Buddhists or the people of Darfur that there are Americans who so loathe the idea of caring about what happens outside our borders . . . "Worry about AMERICANS! Who cares? Go live there if you care so much." So, with that in mind, I want to believe that 38% of the children in the AMERICAN city where I live don't go to bed hungry--but they do. And the problem is worse in the summer when they don't get a free hot lunch at school.
So why bring up all this? Because I have come to realize that what often propels books is the search for truth. You have a cop and he wants to find the murderer. But if it's a murder we don't get to know or care about then it feels procedural. Make it a murder in which the truth was hidden, the real culprit got away, in which someone was framed, and now the reader in invested.
You have a journalist character. There is some story of corporate greed. We read about that every day. But make it about corporate greed in which a whistleblower may have been killed to hide the truth, and now we're doubly invested.
Take it international. If you read the brilliant John Le Carre novel, The Constant Gardener, it was a compelling portrait of grief. At first the book is about one man's search to discover if his wife had a lover when she died. But it becomes a much bigger web with much more dangerous characters before the book is through.
I look at my own novels . . . In The Roofer, Jack Casey is searching for the truth about a man murdered years before--thrown from the roof. It's personal for Jack--that man was his uncle. The person who threw him off, just for kicks, was Ava's father. She knows that. She's always known that. But she searches for a truth in between black and white, in a gray world where she can love her father even though he is a murderer. Ava searches for a truth, too.
So how does the search for truth impact your work? And can we ever really know truth--or just a version of it?
Peace,
E
posted by Erica Orloff at 8:48 AM
4 Comments:
Truth, in the sense you are using it, seems to be what we choose to believe, or put another way, the story we are willing to stick with.
There is what is so, and then there is what we tell ourselves about it that makes it right, wrong, good, bad, etc.
We live the story like it is real, like it is the truth.
But the real truth, the truth you are writing about in your post, is the 'what is so', and not the story about it.
Sometimes the 'what is so' is hard to find. Detective novels, mysteries, Jack from the roofer. They are all after the 'what is so' kind of truth.
I think that Ava is after the story as truth since she already knows the what is so part of it.
I just bought The Roofer this weekend and will start reading it as soon as Water for Elephants is done.
I try to put both kinds of the search for truth in my stories. each one is as important as the other for the seeker... and possibly for the reader as well.
ewoh:
Absolutely. I almost always have the voice of the realist in every book. It is what it is. This is so. Then there is the person searching for justice--which is elusive. Or a truth for what they wish the world to be.
Can't wait to hear what you think of The Roofer.
E
This is a terrific blog. I just got The Roofer. I was telling my friend about it, and she's going to get it too. :)
edie:
Thanks so much. I hope you enjoy the book. And I am so glad you like the blog. It's really become so much a part of my daily routine, and I love everyone's comments when they drop by.
Thanks!
E
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