The Authors Call It Fiction, but in These 2 Novels the Facts Don’t Lie

Dear readers,

Back before the memoir boom, when the barbarous neologism “autofiction” was not yet in vogue, a more titillating vocabulary was deployed when works of fiction flirted with personal disclosure. The facts of life were “thinly veiled.” Stories were “semi-autographical,” their gossip value suggested by the French term roman à clef. You could imagine someone, possibly the author, whispering in your ear: “But you know who that’s really supposed to be…”

A degree of self-exposure — not quite baring all, but not quite staying fully clothed either — used to be part of the business of the novel. Rewriting personal experience as fiction can be a way of processing trauma, exacting revenge or asserting control over emotional chaos. Some novels work hard at transforming the material, and show the work. Others, like the two below, wear the cloak of artifice lightly, creating an intimacy with the readers that carries a hint of prurience. Are we really supposed to know about this? In the age of perpetual TMI, it’s good to be reminded that decorum can be its own kind of transgression.

And who doesn’t love to be let in on somebody’s family secrets — especially if the somebody in question is witty, elegant and ruthlessly honest? Other people’s parents can be wonderful monsters, and the act of depicting them that way combines Oedipal rebellion and filial loyalty. In these books, dutiful children turn the tables on their parents, giving birth to them as terrible, pitiful, unforgettable characters.

—A. O.

“The Seraglio,” by James Merrill

Fiction, 1957