Fact into Fiction: Documentary Realism in the Contemporary Novel

The contemporary novel leads a precarious life between conventional realism, nonfiction "fiction", metafiction and fabulation. The conventions of fiction, however, allow a certain latitude for the merging of these narrative types. This study looks at the way that selected works by eight contemporary novelists combine more or less clearly signalled documentary material with the imagined universes of fictional texts. The novels are Anthony Burgess's "Earthly Powers" and "The End of the World News", E.L.Doctorow's "Ragtime", C.Harrison's "Freud. A Novel", Thomas Kenneally's "Schindler's Ark", J.A.Michener's "Texas". I.Stone's "The Passions of the Mind", William Styron's "Sophie's Choice" and D.M.Thomas's "The White Hotel".