by Timothy Rutt
Michele Zack has settled into her place as a local independent historian, but then there’s an intersection she likes to explore: history and fiction.
“I’m kind of obsessed with this whole question of fiction and history and how all history is a bit of historical fiction and all fiction is historical,” Zack says.
She’s going to explore her obsession on Saturday along with writers who explore those boundaries — and occasionally cross them — at the second annual LitFest Pasadena, at Central Park.
About 40 years ago, Zack said, “E.L. Doctorow wrote Ragtime: it was a big ‘do that he took real historical characters and put them in a novel. But this is just so common now that nobody blinks. It’s happening more and more — people consume their history through fiction.”
She cites Mary Coin by Marissa Silver, a novel that takes off from the classic Dorothea Lange dustbowl-era photo of migrant mother Florence Owens Thompson; and John Muir High School graduate Megan Marshall, with her historical novels of 19th century American feminists, The Peabody Sisters and Margaret Fuller.
Zack will lead a panel, “Are History and Fiction Converging?” with three authors who explore that penumbra: Daniel Walker Howe, 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning historian; Mary Corey, a cultural historian teaching at UCLA who is working on a novel and assigns fiction to her history students; and Julius(Jay) Wachtel, a former federal agent-turned novelist.
Corry “is controversial, she’s a real firecracker: she writes a lot about the 1960’s — she wanted to be a novelist, but got a Ph.D. in history.”
Wachtel “had a whole career in law enforcement at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, went on to get a Ph.D. in criminal justice. He teaches at Cal State Fullerton. He has an interesting biography: his family were Jews who escaped Europe — his mother was in a concentration camp liberated by the Russians — and they settled in South America. He emigrated when he was 10.
“He was really interested in the show trials that Stalin conducted — how [Stalin] tried to get political justification for murdering his political enemies. He was trying to write his book, Stalin’s Witnesses, as a nonfiction book, but couldn’t find a publisher who wanted it as a piece of straight history. They asked, ‘Can’t you write a well-researched novel about it?’ So he did.”
Among the topics they will explore in the 45-minute discussion is the problem of fiction replacing hstory. As an example, she cites the film “Chinatown”: It’s set in the early 1930’s, but it conflates things that happened from 1908 to the 1930’s. It’s a great movie, there’s something so true about it, but it’s not history — but parts of it are history.”
Zack’s panel is scheduled for 11:45 AM Saturday at the Julia Child Stage. Panels, speakers, and events will be going on all day for LitFest Pasadena.
Michele Z said…
Thanks so much Tim, for helping to get the word out! Only one correction, Megan Marshall (Blair graduate whose father Woody Marshall grew up in Altadena and graduated from John Muir — he is extensively quoted in Altadena: Between Wilderness and City) writes straight biography, not historical fiction. So her conversation with novelist Marisa Silver will possibly reflect some of the questions probed by my panel. This year’s LitFest has lots of interest for history lovers; besides these two programs, History Lit is presenting a short play based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. All free, all day!
Monday, May 06, 2013 at 12:42 PM