Had a chat with a retired librarian that flipped my view on historical fiction

I was at a coffee shop in Columbus last Tuesday and this older woman at the next table overheard me complaining to a friend that historical fiction authors just make stuff up. She turned around and said, 'You know, accuracy matters less than emotional truth when you're trying to help people feel the past.' She told me about her favorite novel set during the Dust Bowl and how it got her to research the real stories behind it. That conversation made me realize prompts that mix real events with fictional characters can actually teach people history, not just twist it. Anyone else ever had a random stranger change how you see a genre?

2 comments

2 Comments

patricia_wells2d ago

@margaretrivera brings up a fair point about people mixing up real facts, but a librarian once told me that good historical fiction works like a gateway drug to actual history. My mom read The Killer Angels for a book club and got so hooked on the Civil War details she ended up visiting Gettysburg three times. The key is the book has to be honest about what's real and what's made up in the author's note. Take something like The Book Thief where Death narrates around real Nazi book burnings it makes you want to dig deeper into what actually happened in 1930s Germany.

margaretrivera2d ago

Nah, made up stuff just makes people think they learned real facts when they didn't.

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