A Case for Fiction

This blog post first appeared in November of 2016, just after the presidential election. No matter your feelings for how that election or the recent mid-terms turned out, you might be needing a reboot. A way to cope. Or a means to find compassion—for those coming in and those left out.

In a Publisher’s Weekly article on Monday, Jonathan Kurtz, publisher of Prometheus Books, said they were selling their fiction list to Start Publishing, to return to being a primarily nonfiction press. He cited that in our current world, “intelligent nonfiction is again of urgent value.” I agree 100% with raising the discourse, and do hope that future nonfiction books will aim to lift, rather than to debase, the consciousness of our country.

However, I absolutely do not believe that nonfiction alone can raise us up. So, I once again give you… a case for why….

We need more fiction!

Especially thoughtful, deep, well-researched and so-worth-pondering fiction. We need it more than ever for three reasons:

Escape. Sometimes the world seems topsy-turvy. Either we’re getting what we want, and no one else seems happy, or what we’ve lost makes us rethink everything we thought was true. Fiction can give us a break––a means to flee to another time in history, or to a utopian or more dystopian future. Inside of that “other” place we’re able to find something else.

Empathy. No matter when or where fiction is set, all great fiction is focused on the characters. Some we will love. Some, not so much. And yet all of them, if well-drawn, illustrate how humanity is complex. People are flawed. And yet, by seeing intimately into someone else’s life, even the worst antagonist might elicit compassion from us. Sometimes pity. Either way, the result is something greater.

Enlightenment. It sounds incongruent, but the goal of great fiction writers is to write the truth. The truth, however dark, beautiful, crushing, sad, joyful, odd, funny, or head-spinning. Do we weave in opinions? Of course, but how can we obtain enlightenment without them? It is only in the absence of listening to and attempting to understand a dissenting opinion that we recede into darkness.

So please, regardless of where you are these days, take a deep breath. Go to your favorite bookstore or library. Read fiction. Write fiction. And by all means, share fiction. Through a thoughtful exchange of words, perhaps we can all heal together.

How to Select Your Next Fiction Read

Pick a book, any book, from this list of 100 books compiled by PBS for the Great American Read. And by all means, pick up number one, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee from your favorite librarian.

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