Fact or Fiction? Your Guess Is As Good As Mine: Herta B. Feely's Confessions

I’ll admit it. I really respect James Frey. I followed the controversy surrounding A Million Little Pieces (which contained numerous exaggerations and lies) and its aftermath. I watched the Oprah interviews — when she grilled him, and when she made peace with him. I watched it all, and if there’s one thing that really stuck with me, it’s a comment that Frey made in his final meeting with Oprah. He said, “Let’s say you look at a cubist self-portrait by Picasso. . . . It doesn’t actually look anything like Picasso, or if it does, it does in ways that might only make sense to him.” This seems to suggest that there are more leniencies (and perhaps undeservedly so) in the categorization of genres in visual arts than in literature.

Before the start of his work of fiction, Bright Shiny Morning, Frey stuck in a humorous disclaimer that stands as an acknowledgement of his past: “Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable.” If Herta B. Feely were to do the same, it would probably read something like: “Some of the stories in Confessions should be considered true, but it’s up to you decide which ones.”

Confessions is an anthology comprised of twenty-two short stories and memoirs whose genres remain unrevealed unless you look them up in the “answer key” at the book’s end. This format provokes questions regarding the boundaries between “fact and fiction,” the degree to which the traditional definition of “truth” is acceptable, and the consequent liberties that authors take as a response to their own interpretations. Feely seeks to engage readers in the subject — to invite them to examine if they wanted a story to be true or not, and if they felt betrayed when it wasn’t what they expected.

Knowing the way the book was set up, I read Confessions much more skeptically than I’d even read a newspaper. I was a juror and each story was a case. It frequently seemed that certain feelings were described specifically enough that one would have to have experienced them to write them so well. But still, “reasonable doubt” existed. I would often end up contemplating whether these segments seemed to be described a bit too specifically — whether more detail was revealed than one would have naturally noticed if the said events did, in fact, occur. On the whole, verdicts were difficult to reach.

At the heart of Confessions lies the big question: Does genre even matter, and do authors have a responsibility to inform their readers of the truth (or lack thereof)? George Nicholas, author of the anthology’s “If, Then, But,” states, “Pulp magazines of the ‘40s and ‘50s enticed readers with ‘True Confessions’ in 48-point type on their covers (would their reader have turned away from ‘False Confessions’?).” Nicholas goes on to say, “The Sonoran desert is part of the United States. It is also part of Mexico. But whichever side of the border you’re on, it’s still the desert. That’s what I think about fact or fiction. Makes no difference. It’s the story that counts, and the line has been blurry from day one.”

Confessions is an enthralling literary guessing game. Reading it, I often found myself disillusioned, stranded in the middle of the desert, wondering where the borderlines were and if it even mattered.