narrative nonfiction

Narrative

Nonfiction

A Genre That Challenges Description

Bobcat
Vivian of Avalon?

Oak
Eosaidh of Cornualle?

"This tale is not true, as most people understand that word . . ."

Simply put, narrative nonfiction might be facts that read like a story. Or, perhaps, a made up tale that has the ring of truth. Booksellers are at odds over what shelf on which to place it, making publishers nervous about offering it to begin with. Most writers would not consider employing it. Many people do not understand it. Yet readers inevitably find it fascinating.

The Land and the Romans
Above: Bol Forla,
"Morla's Belly"

We believe this strange genre is the only possible way to tell a tale as compelling as
The Apple and The Thorn.

The presence of the innundated "summer country" around what is now Glastonbury is one of the reliable historical facts. So, too, the advancing II Augusta Legion under Vespasian. We know of the tin, lead, and silver mines in Cornwall and the Mendip Hills, and the "tin route" through Gaul to the present-day Marseilles, then by Phoenecian ships to Palestine. True enough is the clash between Roman and Druid, marked by a curious mixture of hatred and respect.

The rest of the story belongs to the realm of imagination, which is not to say falsehood, rather truth of a different color.

Even the two main characters belong to this realm of myth. Vivian, the Lady of Avalon, emerges from the ancient tales of Britain. Joseph of Arimathea is found in the sacred scriptures of the Church. Neither is attested to in secular histories contemporary with their time. In The Apple and The Thorn, we make use of a Brythonic "Joseph" legend that says he was born in Cornwall, in the Jewish Diaspora, and so we call him: Eosaidh of Cornualle. While Eos' nephew has since influenced western history more than any other character, there is no reference to "the Lad" in any literature of the time save holy scripture. We cannot reach back and touch any of these characters "historically."

Eoasaidh
of Cornualle

The Lady of the Lake

This book might have been written as a sociology of comparative religions, or as a history of the Christianization of Britain. It might well have been a work of theology. Perhaps it might have been a "how-to" book of self-help and spiritual-growth. It might even have been the biography of two spiritual leaders. Instead, it is a tale. Several publishers turned it down: "We don't do fiction." One agent wondered where it might be placed on bookshop shelves, being not quite fiction, not quite non-fiction: "Couldn't you do it more as a 'Da Vinci Code' thing?"

Tom at Thoth Publications said, "You've given me a difficult book here," but Thoth has had the vision to offer the tale. Finally, it will be readers who will decide whether it has all been worth the while.

There is much of Bobcat and of OakWyse in these pages. The muddy waters of ancient marshes surge within her body as surely as they did in Vivian. His tale of exile from the religion that bore him is as poignant as Eosaidh's. Do the characters and the authors share identities? Perhaps. But the central person in the tale is the Reader, about whom the story is really told.

Narrative nonfiction is not a new genre. What makes this book different is that the nonfiction aspect of it is not primarily historical, but theological and ethical.

Home

This is indeed a "difficult book" to classify. But it is a moving tale. Either it will redefine the spirituality of two Ages, or it will languish in the dust of bookshops, and be returned, coverless, to the publisher. It is a risk. But Vivian and Eosaidh knew of risks. They bet their lives on one.