fiction

A NOVEL OR NOT A NOVEL

/ Brianda Domecq / 13 Comments

A WORK OF FICTION…. OR NOT

(what makes a novel, a novel)

When the literary critic and professor, John Brushwood,  published his book on the novel in Mexico, I discovered -much to my chagrin- that my first novel had not been included. Eleven Days,  or Once días y algo más -the novelized version of my personal kidnapping experience did not appear in the text. When I confronted him begging to know why my “novel” had been excluded, his answer was: “Because it isn’t a novel: you didn’t invent anything”. In that moment,  I was too taken aback to ask the obvious question (How could you possibly know that? Were you there?)  But now, years later, I can look back with less emotional attachment and try to understand.

While writing my novel, my obvious literary reference was In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s novelized version of the Clutter family’s murders. There are obvious differences in the two experiences (mine and Capote’s)… Capote was not at the scene of the crime; I was the victim of the crime- Capote read about or heard from another, the instances of the wrong-doing; I experienced most of what I describe in the novel. Yet what Capote describes and what I describe are both factual events and are narrated in linear fashion so as to reproduce as closely as possible the actual happenings. Soooo,… why would Brushwood consider Capote’s book a non-fiction novel, and mine a…. ???? What???  

My work is definitely not an essay… It lacks the necessary critical distance an essay-writer must take in relation to his material… Poetry or drama… it could not be considered either of these. Perhaps biography or autobiography… but any critic would be of the opinion that it lacks distance from the subject, and scholarly discipline to be either of these… So, a mongrel. Ah, yes… Once días y algo más, must definitely be considered a mongrel. . That’s not so bad. I own a mongrel and she is adorable, loving, intelligent, kind, brave and creative in her own doggy way, so if my “novel” is a mongrel, that is ok with me. A mongrel doesn’t stop being a dog, so I have written mongrel novel. 

When I wrote Once días… I definitely believed I was writing a novel; I used all the techniques that writing a novel requires: structure, narrative voice, construction of characters, beginning-middle- end, suspense… everything that goes into the creation of a novel went into writing Eleven Days… Yet Brushwood affirmed without the least hesitation or doubt that it was not a novel because it was not fiction: I had not made up anything.

Let’s see… in the book, I describe 11 days in the life of the character, 11 days enclosed between two violent traumatic events: her kidnapping and her rescue. In order for this tale to be told, it was necessary that I re-create (or in many ways create) the characters that populate the novel, that I produce an element of suspense (even though everyone who reads the newspapers would have already known about the event and its final outcome), that I determine a time span for the narration, that I eliminate that which is superfluous, that I re-create (or create) conversations, feelings, thoughts, fears, nightmares…  for each of the characters…  In other words, all the elements that go into the writing of a novel. So the fundamental question is… Is a novel necessarily fiction?  And if it is not a novel, then what is it? An essay has no need to re-create characters and make them act and live in the course of the narration. An essay has no need for suspense. An essay describes, a work of fiction recreates bringing alive for the reader events that are not actually happening. When I read an essay, I want information; when I read a novel, I want experience. An essay tells me how it might be to be kidnapped; a novel drags me into the actual event and makes me live each day with the victim. For an essay to be a good essay the writer must take a critical distance from the material involved; for a novel to be a good novel, the writer must disappear in the experience described so the reader may enter alone into the action. When I wrote Eleven Days my sole intention was to kidnap the reader, and the only way to do that was to use all the techniques of a novel.

Perhaps it is necessary to create a new category… the Non-fiction Novel which would imply a re-definition of the novel where the characteristic of fictional would not be a necessity, and the emphasis would be on the experience of the reader: Do I want the reader to understand the event or to experience the event? If I want the reader to understand (intellectually) the event, I write an essay; if  I want the reader to experience personally  the event, I write a novel. The essay describes; the novel re-creates. Nothing in this description says that what is recreated must be invented..  Therefore, I propose that a novel can be fiction or non-fiction depending on the source of the material for the story, whereas an essay or an autobiographical writing is necessarily non-fiction. A novel has as its intention, to make the reader experience the event or events in the text; an essay has the intention to make the reader understand intellectually the unrolling  and outcome of the event or events. An essay would describe a kidnapping; a novel would kidnap the reader.  

Obviously, it was my intention to kidnap the readers. If that goal was achieved or not, it rests with the readers to respond.

THE NIGHT MY MOTHER DIED

/ Brianda Domecq / 11 Comments

 My mother called one day when she was in her late 70’s or early 80`s and told me straight out that she was losing her mind. I can’t remember how I answered her, but I don’t think -at the time- I gave her fear much importance. However, she was right… and the transition was not as slow as one might imagine. By the age of 83, my mother had all but lost her conscious mind to a rapidly progressing dementia… she turned into ‘my little girl’.

Naturally, I was in the prime of my life and not about to saddle myself with my mother’s dementia, so I got her a keeper who moved in to live with her and whom she hated from the word ‘go’. It wasn’t cruel… it was necessary. If I had attempted to take on the care of my mother -apart from the fact that it would have been impossible in the long run or even in the short one- I would have sacrificed my life and hated her for it. I feel no guilt, I did what had to be done and provided my mother with the best care available in her situation.

Seeing as my brother lived in Spain (my mother and I lived in Mexico at the time) and I wanted to move there with my second husband, I asked him to find me a residence where we could put out mother and have her properly cared for. He did, and I arrived some time later and deposited her in a very nice -and expensive- residence for the elderly. Seeing as she was by that time reduced to and aged infancy, I also hired two Ecuadorian girls to take care of her for 16 hours a day as I knew that in these types of residences, the help is scarce and usually overworked. So my mother was never alone while she was awake and always kept clean and pretty. I lived relatively nearby and visited her at least three times a week taking her out for a stroll in her wheel chair when possible and as long as she enjoyed it. At the end, she was terrified of going out so I would arrive to visit with a cup of ice-cream which was her favorite. She weighed next to nothing and would run over and sit on my lap the moment I arrived, so it was as if the roles had been reversed and she was my little “old” child. I had but one prayer which I often voiced to the Universe: “Please, don’t let my mother die alone; I want to be with her when she goes, please.”

Then, one day, one of the girls I had hired to watch over my mother, asked me what the word “Daddy” meant and said that my mother kept repeating it and reaching up with her both hands towards the ceiling. It made me wonder -agnostic that I am- if my grandfather was appearing to my mother. I remembered that my grandmother -whose father had died when she was two years old so she couldn’t remember what he looked like- a few days before her death said that she heard his voice coming from a deep well, telling her that he was coming.

One evening I had just exited a restaurant where I had had my dinner, and was driving home when I felt a sharp pain on the left side of my chest, and the words “My mother is dying” appeared in my mind. Instead of going home, I drove straight to the residence where she was. It was 11 o’clock in the evening, but strangely enough the street door to the residence where my mother was, was not locked and I walked in unannounced without even having to ring a bell. The desk where the night guard always sat was also empty… not a soul saw me open the door, enter, cross the lobby, walk down the hallway and go into my mother’s room. She was dying, that was obvious. She lay on her side, a slight thread of blood coming from her mouth and staining the sheet on the bed. Her eyes were open. I sat her up gently, placed a pillow behind her for support and then sat on the bed next to her, holding her hand. She lay her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I began talking in a soft, gently voice, telling her how wonderful her life had been, how she had been loved by my father, how happy she had been always and how there was nothing at all to fear. I talked for a while and then fell silent, sitting beside my mother, holding her hand and looking up at the ceiling. We sat there together for about 20 minutes and then she sighed and stopped breathing. I was sitting beside her, looking up at the corner of the room and the ceiling above so that my line of vision was between my mother’s body and the ceiling and that was when I saw it… My mother’s ‘ghost’, a transparent figure of my mother and someone else (looked like my grandfather) floating up towards the corner of the room and ceiling, and disappearing through the wall. I didn’t dream it, I saw it. I guess that is what they call the “ghost”, but the marvel was she wasn’t alone. I was flooded by the most incredible feeling of euphoria I have ever experienced and could do no more than call out over and over again: “¡You made it Mommy, you made it!” I did not imagine this, it was more than I could have imagined given that I do not believe in ghosts, the after-life or even God for that matter. I saw it. Of course, when I turned to my mother, she was dead… she had to be, I had seen her leave.

Instead of sorrow, I felt a euphoria as I have seldom experienced as I embraced my mother’s small lifeless frame and kept repeating over and over: “You made it Mommy, you made it”. Needless to say, the evening we held the “wake” right there in the home and everyone came to say their ’I’m sorries’… I didn’t cry;foe me it was a celebration. My mother was free, and I had had the most spiritual experience of my entire life. She had allowed me to see her go, undoubtedly it had been her or her spirit that had summoned me with the pain and the thought. She had gifted me with her death, and I am so, so grateful. The most wonderful gift a mother can give you. Thank you, Mommy. I love you always.