Novels Ripped From the Headlines
Worlds of "what if"? WSIR #25
Did you hear the “Law & Order” dun-dun in your head when you read that headline? This is what the Marketing Consultants call clickbait, friends, because today’s books are not really the salacious “based on a true crime” you can see in comforting hours of reruns on afternoon TV. (But for actual true crime recos, go here.)
Instead, what unites all of this week’s book recommendations are that they take a real life person or situation as overt inspiration (sometimes very heavily borrowed inspiration) to wonder, “what if?” or “what might go through the mind of these very human individuals behind closed doors?” In the hands of amateurs, this could quickly become uninspired or even squirmy fan fiction (I want to insert a joke about Fifty Shades of Grey here but a/I never read it, maybe it’s great, and b/Twilight fan fiction does not probably count as “inspired by real life” so I’m STYMIED.)
But when done well, this kind of novel really resonates with me and here’s why: you already probably have your own internal narrative about a public person or a situation, about who’s good and who’s bad, about why people acted the way they did. So it’s fascinating and meaningful when good novels in this vein challenge perceptions and biases, and force imagination and empathy for people in new ways.
I can imagine that it’s also a real high-wire act for authors, who as a group likely always borrow some nuggets from real life as inspiration but in most cases don’t have to account for readers already having their own version of events. These “real life fiction” authors must be constantly discerning when to cleave to and when to deviate from the “truth,” finding new ways to describe endlessly reported information. Authors - a magical and gifted group of people.
So enjoy this collection of novels, all of which I enjoyed, and let me know in the comments if I’ve missed some obvious suggestions!
The real life inspiration: Baryshnikov’s defection to the US.
Astonish Me follows Joan, a talented but not transcendent professional dancer who helps a Soviet ballet superstar defect to the US and then decides to try to lead a “normal life.” I particularly loved this novel because of its beautiful meditation on what it means to obsessively focus on the desire for and pursuit of perfection and what the costs are. Plus the settings - 1970’s New York, suburban Southern California, artistic Paris - are so illustratively expressed. A really lovely novel.
Real life inspiration: You’ll be shocked to learn it’s Hillary Clinton.
Rodham is the most “sliding doors” novel of the bunch, as in - what if exceptional young Hillary Rodham had taken a different path and not accepted Bill Clinton’s proposals? Who is the woman she might have become? I was ambivalent about reading this (like, do we need more Hillary information?) but am so glad I did, because of its hard questions about female ambition, and about what responsibility we play to others, and the often ugly tradeoffs of political ambition. Though I could have done with about 75% less discussion of Bill Clinton sex, thanks. (I also enjoyed this author’s American Wife, a novel inspired by Laura Bush.)
Real life inspiration: The murder of Black teenager Latasha Harlins by a Korean store owner, whose trial and sentencing was an inciting factor in the 1992 LA riots.
Well, I guess Your House Will Pay is sort of “true crime” but really, it’s about two families, one Korean and one Black, who are intertwined by violent events in their past and are forced to reckon with family, secrets, and racial tensions in tinderbox LA. It reads like a thriller in many ways - tense, unsparing, gripping - but it’s also a powerful reflection on the generational legacy of racism and violence, and what our responsibility is to ourselves, to our flawed loved ones, and to people we’ve been conditioned to reject.
Also, this is my favorite cover in a long time. Look at that! Chain link … palm trees, a match .. so good.
Real life inspiration: The romance of Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
A complete 180 in mood from the last book, The Royal We is just an incredibly fun, funny, and satisfying take on an American girl falling in love with the hero to the British throne. I don’t know if it’s extremely well researched or deeply imagined, but every moment of this feels plausible about sacrifice, and duty, and just being a woman in your twenties navigating self-determination and love, while also being a frothy joy to read. (The sequel, The Heir Affair, was much more sprawling and less well characterized, but weirdly more resonant in the bittersweet choices we make as adults.) Anyway, if you want something fun - this is your book.
Real life inspiration: The Manson Family
In The Girls, 14-year-old bored and listless Evie falls in with the female followers of a Charles Manson figure, becoming increasingly besotted with the thrill and seduction of life with these counter-culture women while also seeing how increasingly dangerous the group is becoming. It’s written almost in brush strokes, with lots of adjectives and sentence fragments, painting a atmospheric picture of the 1969 atmosphere. I also really appreciated it as a spotlight on that time in adolescence where the attention of just slightly older people is so heady, addictive and seductive. It’s mesmerizing, deeply uncomfortable, and sympathetic all at once. (And I guess another true crime … sort of.)
A Year of Shakespeare: Let Me Explain
So, I’ve read one (1) page of Othello since last week and that’s hardly going to get one to the Shakespeare finish line by December 31, which is only eight months away, y’all. EIGHT MONTHS.
This is for two reasons:
I don’t seem to want to read Shakespeare right now, so …
I have an unbearable pressure of library books right now. There should be a German word for the feeling of having so many library books at once, which is both exciting but also nerve-wracking. Whenever I hear of a book I want to read, I put it on my library holds, and, well, they are all coming in RIGHT NOW.
So who knows! Maybe I’ll get on a post-vaccination eight hour flight somewhere and bang out a few Henry histories to get me back on track. Could happen!
(Extra thanks to reader friends Jeff B, Kira W., and Jane R. who suggested some of these books.)
The books above link to Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores. You can see all my past recommendations on my Bookshop.org page.
Also, a friendly question - should this newsletter come on a different day rather than Sunday mornings? Let me know in the comments!