Fact and Fiction, part two: The Anxious Artist

Two weeks ago I had a major anxiety attack. It happened while I was in the shower in the morning, which is where I usually have anxiety attacks. It had been a couple years since I had one, so it took me by surprise. But it was clear to me what triggered the attack. I had opened an e-mail first thing in the morning from the subject of something I wrote.

In the past few months, I’ve been writing a lot of short fiction. I particularly want to write something longer about nuns, and so have been writing a lot of short pieces (100 words, 250 words, 300 words tops) based on anecdotes I have read or heard or pieces I’ve made up based on information I know. I’ve been trying to imagine my way into the character of a nun. Alongside those short pieces, I’ve been writing notes and “scenes” to what I hope will become a novel. I have a basic story in mind, and it takes place in three time periods: an event in 2004 that causes my nun character to look back on her life in 1970 in the context of entering the convent in 1956. It allows me to write and think about the current day, the time of Vatican II and also the pre-Vatican II days.

As part of my research for the novel, I’ve spent a few afternoons reading oral histories in the archives at Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Mostly what I’m looking for is context: what was it like to take summer classes at the University of Minnesota in the 1960s? What was it like to teach at a “mission” school in a small town in Minnesota? I’m looking for facts, but also of course for stories and anecdotes and what might be called “color.” After all, I have no idea what it was like to be a nun in the past 50 years. But my desire to understand what it was like, and to figure out for myself what it says about being American, being Catholic, and being alive in this time and place, is what is driving me to find out. I’m learning a lot about terminology and logistics.

Occasionally, I discover information in an oral history that is beautiful and rich and about which I feel compelled to construct one of these 100-word-or-more stories. Whenever I do, I am very conscious of using the facts and words of someone else’s life. I’m not in the world of fiction anymore. I’m not sure what they thought would become of these oral histories, but I’m sure they didn’t think some writer would come along and exploit them for material.

I’ve posted two of these stories on http://cowbird.com.  In both cases I identified my source.

Sister Remberta Westkaemper

In the case of “Flora,” a story about Sister Remberta Westkaemper, I identified her by name and even found a wonderful photo of her with some of her plants to accompany the story. I even posted a link to the story on the College of Saint Benedict (CSB) Facebook page. S. Remberta taught at CSB and they are always interested in stories about these foremothers.

In the case of “New York,”  I didn’t identify the Sister by name. She is still alive and she might not like what I’ve constructed of her story. I used a random photo for the piece, not something from the Sisters’ archives.

Working on another piece, about a gorgeously rich German Catholic childhood, I was very aware of the Sister I was writing about. I know her– she works and lives at the monastery still. I adore her; she has the most wonderful laugh and is just a delightful person to be around, generous and wise and what you might call “salt of the earth.”

Before I did anything with the story, and actually hoping to get from her a photo, I sent it to someone to show to her (she doesn’t have e-mail) and asked if it was OK. I had made no effort to disguise this person, had kept the names of figures in the story the same and accredited it to her, saying I assembled it from her oral history. It is a type of appropriation, of course, and I want to be clear about where it came from, whose words these (mostly) are.

The e-mail from my messenger brought a message from this Sister: she would prefer not to have any personal material on the internet or made public.

Fair enough. Now I know, thinking rationally, which I was able to do as soon as I stumbled out of the shower, that I did everything right here. The oral histories are accessible. I lovingly and honestly approached and crafted the piece. I also took the extra step of asking permission. And I will not publish the story. I should not see her request as a rejection or a scold.

But I am always conscious that there is a line. In writing the novel, I’m trampling all over that line, incorporating pieces of what I know from real people with stuff I’m making up. But even when writing a memoir, which I did several years ago, I knew I was trampling all over the line. Every time I put fingers to keyboard I’m faced with the complex world of fact and fiction and the spaces in between.

Which is not to say it’s hard to tell which is which. Mike Daisey knows what happened and what didn’t happen to him, and what he made up to make a better theater piece. (However, I think in some ways he may have become deluded about some of the facts in his desire for what he’s saying to be true.) But he wasn’t careful. And when he says to Ira Glass, “I was terrified the whole thing would unravel,” I know exactly what he means. It is the same space as my anxiety attack. What I know and what I know, what I own and what I invent, make for a complex literary reality as well as a complex reality in which I live. As writers, however, it’s very important to keep these things clear. It’s equally important to honor all of them: the reporting and the theater, the fiction and the oral history. There’s room in the world for all these stories and all their truths.