If The Dead Could Only Talk
The thought, if the dead could only talk, came into my head in the middle of last night. I’m not sure why except that I’ve been writing a story in which so many of the characters are drawn from people who are already dead.
Drawing on Family Stories
My third novel started out as historical fiction, inspired by mother’s anecdotes about her family in the old country. I’ve since woven in a parallel story taking place in Canada in this century. With that change, my book became an intergenerational saga and literary fiction. I’ve taken a page from Madeleine Thien’s excellent novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing. In her story, she goes back and forth from family scenes in present day Vancouver to the time of Mao’s cultural revolution in China.
Any writer who’s tried to get any kind of family history knows that whatever they get has been filtered through the storyteller’s lens. That means, you get what that storyteller wants to tell you and you don’t get what they want to keep hidden. There are secrets that die with the departed. So when the story involves people who are no longer alive, how do you get at the truth? The truth is still important in fiction. The writer needs to breathe life into their characters, so you always get some truth but you also realize you don’t get the whole truth.
What Story Would The Dead Tell?
This came to mind recently when I watched the excellent documentary
The Staircase on Netflix. It tells the story of Michael Peterson, charged with the murder of his wife who was found bloodied at the bottom of a staircase in their home.
I won’t tell you how the series plays out, but what I will say, in the end, you’ll wish the dead could talk. What story would they tell? Would it be the one the survivors have shared or would it be completely different? And being a documentary, this series is supposedly true to life and yet we know not everything we hear or see is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The Dead Are Still With Us
On my night table, I have The Dubliners, a short story collection, by James Joyce. I’m looking forward to reading The Dead. In this short story, the protagonist considers all the dead who have gone but are still living in the memory of the living. And I can attest to the fact that memory is skewed over time for us all.
A Writer’s Choice or Not
And so it goes. I’ve wondered how I got on this path to write this third novel. Sure, I wanted to know my family history but it’s more than that. Like Madeleine Thien, I felt compelled to write about a people in a culture at a time foreign even to me. Or like Alex Haley, who wrote Roots. I’m sure what happened on those slave ships and afterwards in the United States tugged at him and occupied his dreams, too. He had to write that story.
I read not too long ago, that a writer doesn’t choose what to write, the story chooses them. When I think of every story I’ve written, I have to agree.
What about you? Of the books you’ve published or the ones you’re working on, have you chosen to work on that story or has it chosen you and how? If you’ve worked in characters based on people you’ve known, how have you handled that? I’d love to hear about your writing journey in the comment section below. Thanks in advance.
When I think about how stories come to me, I’d have to say they are heavily influenced by events around me, and in that sense, the story chooses me. As for the characters I write, they are usually a mash-up of the body language, vocabulary and attitude I collect while observing people. I’ve not yet been tempted to write about a real person – something tells me they wouldn’t appreciate the words I’d put I their mouths.
Jo-Anne, you’ve chosen a safer path. And knowing The Gift your protagonist has, I wonder how that story chose you. I’d love to have a dream having that kind of talent. Rob has had that talent in his dreams more than a few times. I’m jealous.
Writing a story that chooses you must be much easier that one we try to force ourselves to write. I have always felt that we still live on as long as someone remembers us.
Beautifully said Jo. Thank you.