Sunday, June 17, 2012

“It all really happened”: Romans à clef and fact-based tales



It may sound contradictory but readers demand two things from their reading material: to be taken away from their harsh realities and to be exposed to things that seem realistic and identifiable to them.  Whether it is an autobiographical novel, historical fiction or roman á clef writers like to go for fact-based plots. But does an author have the right to hoax the public into believing that fictional accounts actually happened? Or to exaggerate literary license to smear public figures and distort reality?

Writers are advised to stick to what they know, to write about their environment and to base their characters on real people.  But what are the limits when it comes to dealing with historical facts or depicting well-known public figures and notorious crimes?  The reader may have a field day trying to guess who is who in a roman à clef (literally “a novel with clues”) but the writer could be asking for a law suit.

Part of historical fiction’s charm is that its characters actually existed and went through the joys and ordeals portrayed in the novel. When Robert Graves tackled the subject of Imperial Rome in I Claudius, he adhered to the truth by following the lead of classical historians like Tacitus and Suetonius. Precisely what the producers of HBO’s “Rome” chose not to do, so they could have a free hand reinventing Roman history.  Lucky for them no emperor was around to sue them.



On a smaller scale, Philippa Gregory does the same in her so-called historical novels, yet the licenses she takes in The Other Boleyn Girl makes it more fictional than factual as any historians could easily prove. The peak of historical distortion appears in works like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter in which the future president´s mother is slain by a blood-sucking creature aided by plantation owners. So what is Honest Abe to do but chase after vampires, becoming an abolitionist in the process?  Should the real Lincoln, a revered historical figure, be subject to such disrespect?



The autobiographical novel is another misleading genre. Unlike a memoir, autobiographical fiction will only touch the most transcendental aspects of the protagonist´s life, will still have a central conflict that must be solved at the end, and does not have to be entirely based on fact. Louisa May Alcott modeled The March Family after her own family but in real life she never married a German school teacher. Ernest Hemingway was in the Italian Army during the Great War and had an affair with a nurse, but he didn´t get her pregnant and run off with her to Switzerland as his alter ego Fredrik Henry does in A Farewell to Arms.

When Nancy Mitford published The Pursuit of Love in 1945, her sister phoned her and said: “You have no imagination so you must be having an affair with a Frenchman.” Indeed, Nancy was having a romance that would last until her death with Colonel Gaston Palewski, De Gaulle´s aid in London. She also turned Palewski into a literary character in her novels, the grand Fabrice de Sauveterre. Nancy Mitford’s books were loved in England, since most of her characters were inspired by real members of the British high society, including her own relatives who are the models for the delightfully dysfunctional Radletts. But in real-life, the Mitford were darker and more dysfunctional than the author would tell us.
Gaston Palewski, or "The Colonel" as Nancy Mitford called him.


The roman à clef (was invented by Mademoiselle de Scudery, one of the earliest novelists in history and was part of social circle centered at La Marquise de Rambouillet´s salon. The people that gathered at the Hotel de Rambouillet included writers, philosophers and even royalty. De Scudery wanted to write about their affairs, but in the days of the Sun King, offending royalty or aristocracy meant a ticket to La Bastille. Therefore, in her novels, Mademoiselle turned important acquaintances into characters of Greek mythology.

Madeleine de Scudery

That  was the birth of he Roman à clef, a novel that deals with real events  but changes characters’ names  in order to protect the innocent, the guilty and, foremost, the writer.  After all William Randolph Hearts did threaten Orson Welles with a libel suit after recognizing himself in “Citizen Kane”, Welles opus magna and film à clef. When Lauren Weisberger published The Devil Wears Prada, everybody assumed it was an autobiographical account of her days in Vogue, and the heroine´s ruthless boss Miranda Priestly was obviously based on Anna Wintour, Vogue´s editor-in-chief.



Despite the author´s denials, everybody in the designing world (and the media) rallied in defense of the real “dragon lady.” The novel got  mean critics from the Times Book Review that bordered in ad hominem reproaches targeting the author; Conde Nast publications did not bother to review the book, and designers  refused  to appear in the film afraid it would upset Wintour (who did show up at the premiere …wearing Prada!) Writing about real people is a dangerous affair.

Another hook for reality lovers is a story “straight from the headlines,” one that is based on a recent scandal or crime. In 1827, Antoine Berthet shot Madame Michoud, his former employee, at a Grenoble church. Bethet blamed Madame Michoud, who had been his mistress, for interfering with his romance with Mademoiselle de Cordon, daughter of his new employer. Berthet was convicted of murder and guillotined. Stendhal would take this red chronicle tidbit and turned it into his masterpiece Le Rouge et le Noir.

Ewan McGregor an Rachel Weisz in the TV adaptation of Le Rouge et Le Noir.


Crime stories are excellent basis for stories to please a public hungry for sensationalism. Patrick Hamilton based his play “Rope” on the Leopold-Loeb murders; Norman Mailer used Gary Gilmore’s execution for his The Executioners’ Song and the homicide of Jonny Stompanato, perpetrated by Lana Turner´s daughter motivated Harold Robbins to write Where Love Has Gone.

Before my bodice-ripper years, I was hooked on Harold Robbins’ romans a clef.  Next to Jacqueline Susann, he was the most prolific chronicler of scandals involving global jet set members and Hollywood stars. It was incredible fun to guess who was behind his characters.  Soon I knew that Nora in Where Love Has Gone was Lana Turner; Jonas Cord in The Carpetbaggers was Howard Hughes, Dax in The Adventurers was inspired by Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa and The Lonely Lady was a thinly disguised portrait of Jacqueline Susann.

Lana Turner, her daughter Cheryl, and Stompanato


Prior to Jackie Collins, Jacqueline Susann was the expert in the business of Hollywood romans a clef. So good was she at turning movie stars into fictional characters that sometimes not only the readers were confused. In Once is not Enough, Susann tells the tragic story behind a reclusive Hollywood diva named Karla. After her retirement, the Polish actress just “vants to be alone”, but several lovers of either sex are bent in discovering her secrets. One of those secrets is the mentally-challenged daughter she keeps hidden in London.

A couple for years after the novel hit the bestseller’s list, a Swedish magazine leaked the news that they had discovered that Greta Garbo had a hidden daughter named Liv Gustaffson.  The rumor soon died out because, aside from wishful thinking, there were no facts supporting their claim. Greta Garbo, unlike her fictional clone, never had a child, and the disturbed daughter was a reflection of Susann’s own autistic son that she always kept away from the public eye.

Sometimes authors purposely play with their readers. In 1967, Lady Joan Lindsay published Picnic at Hanging Rock the enigmatic story of the vanishing of three schoolgirls in the Australian Outback. Following her publisher´s advice, and to boost the suspense, Lindsay hacked off the last chapter where the mystery was explained.



The novel became an instant hit in Australia and abroad, originating a fandom that despaired over finding solutions to the great enigma of what really happened at that St. Valentine picnic.   Readers believed the novel was based on actual facts. After Lady Joan´s passing the end chapter was published, but people preferred to continue on conjecturing and I have read books (and Internet sites) on UFO’s abductions where the events at Hanging Rock are described as factual.

Humans love to find supernatural solutions to the unexplained. Even in this skeptical age there is nothing as titillating as the idea of real mysteries dressed as fiction. The most terrifying aspect behind “The Blair Witch Project” was its reality show aura, the concept that it was a real project about a real dangerous sorceress. Dan Brown’s novels might, according to its followers, debunked “ancient myths”, but he has also created new legends. I know many Dan Brown fans who truly believe in the existence of The Illuminati and The Priory of Zion or that Jesus fathered a daughter named Sara.

How legitimate is to present fiction as facts? Is there a limit for literary or historical licenses when it comes to real people? How autobiographical are your novels? Do you include real characters and historical events in your books? How do you deal with them?

22 comments:

  1. Thanks for including the video clip of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and for the info on the ending of the book (which I haven't read). Makes me want to watch the movie again--and re-read "The Red and The Black." Good post.

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    1. I agree with Joycelyn. I watched that clip and found it so fascinating that now I want to read the book and see the film.

      What did happen at Hanging Rock . . .

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  2. How you doing Joycelyn? I had the pleasure of watching Picnic at Hanging Rock recently in Film &Arts. I hadn´t seen it in almost thirty years, and it hadn’t dated one bit. It´s a gorgeous film, like most of Peter Weir’s work. The book is quite short, and very similar to the film.

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    1. I don't think I could handle a mystery without an explanation. It would drive me crazy! (Perhaps this is why I didn't care much for "The Blair Witch Project"). However, the trailer of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is appealing and I wouldn't mind watching the film. Do you guys think the novel would have been as successful if the mystery had been revealed?

      Good to see you, Joycelyn!

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    2. I don´t know if you read my blog entry on Picnic, but there I tell what goes on in the missing chapter:
      http://reinosdefabula.blogspot.com/2012/05/mas-alla-del-tiempo-y-del-espacio.html

      Her ending was so convoluted and unsatisfactory that I think it was a great idea to conceal it, and let the public conjecture about possible solutions to their hearts' content

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  3. I'm doing well, thank you. I hope you are, too. It's probably been about that long since I've seen Picnic, too. My favorite Peter Weir movie is "The Last Wave," which I've watched over and over. Mesmerizing.

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    1. I love The Last Wave, but my three favorite Weir films are Picnic, The Year of Living Dangerously and Witness

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    2. Witness is beautiful, specially in the scenes in Amish country. Weir knows very well how to use landscape to restrain the darkness of his stories. You end up wondering "how bad things could happen here?"

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  4. Your post reminds me of something I just read in a book that Stephanie recommended a few weeks ago (20 Master Plots and How to Build Them):

    "Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. (Mark Twain)"

    The more I learn about humanity, the more I realize the saying "truth is stranger than fiction" is totally accurate. This is why real life is a great inspiration for writers and we can't help but chronicle the stories than surround us (sometimes I've thought "If this were fiction, nobody would believe it could happen.") But we have to disguise them as fiction to avoid hurting others. I had this dilemma with my second novel. The historical character I base my antagonist on was a ruthless man, but historical accounts can be biased and I didn't know the real person, so I didn't want to use his name (I also wanted to avoid legal problems with his descendants). Changing his name also gave me the freedom to adjust the timing of crucial events to my plot development.

    A fascinating subject, Sister Violante!

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    1. Sister Lorena, I have your opoosite problem, I make historical villains too nice! In Venefika, I made The Goebbels Familiy almost charming, but then, everybody who met them said their home life was almost idyllic, and I always felt so sorry for those children

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    2. I tried to give him some positive traits. I'm not sure if I succeeded at making him sympathetic in a few scenes. Only my readers can judge that. :)

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    3. I think it´s easier to write about people that lived a hundred years ago and was already judged by history. The tough part is when they are still around. And that not aplies to public figures. What if the villain in your book is based on your ex spouse?

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    4. For me, changing names is a great path to take. If I use a historical figure, I use them briefly and try to stay as true to what my research has shown me. Otherwise, I change the name completely. One example of this is the town I based my setting on in one of my novels. I had things happening in this town that I don't think ever happened, so I tweaked the name a little and made it fictional.

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    5. I had forgotten about places! Although, Grace Metalious invented the name "Peyton Place" , the people of Gilmanton, NH, recognized it and themselves in the book. After she died, they didn´t want her buried in the town´s cemetery.

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  5. Whoever coined the adage, 'truth is stranger than fiction' must have lived before Jules Verne, let alone HG Wells et al.
    One thing I don't understand, is how writers get away with blatant fictional invasions into the lives of the Kennedys, or the Queen of England, (to name a couple), without serious legal consequences. Is it because the subjects are already in the public domain as celebrities, or do they revel in the fame?
    I intend to Epublish and am preparing the text of my novel to be acceptable to an Epublisher. (they have a lot of rules). If you haven't seen this site, I recommend it.
    http://indiereader.com/2012/06/how-amazon-saved-my-life/
    A great post, Violante, the videos really add a lot. Regis

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    1. Dear Regis, that is the little hypocrisy behind the "rman a clef". The author changes names, modifies the events a little and that makes him/her untouchable..but once in a while it doesn't work. Orson Welles bore all the brunt of Hearts mediatic empire after Citizen Kane, and that is not the only case.
      Thank you for the help and hope to hear great news from your e-publishing endeavour. I'm glad you like the videos.

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    2. Thank you for the link, Regis. Very inspiring story!

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  6. "One thing I don't understand, is how writers get away with blatant fictional invasions into the lives of the Kennedys, or the Queen of England, (to name a couple), without serious legal consequences. Is it because the subjects are already in the public domain as celebrities, or do they revel in the fame?"

    Regis, I think that is exactly it. As public figures they don't have the same rights to privacy that a regular person has. Therefore, suing for defamation and such is practically a waste of time (and money) since:

    1. It's fiction.
    2. The law doesn't protect the reputation of those who have voluntarily gone into the spotlight unless the plaintiff can prove actual malice from the writer/publisher.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure

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  7. It seems to me that it's never OK to present fiction as fact. That doesn't mean some gullible people (as with the Dan Brown fans) won't delude themselves into thinking a novel is real ... there are surely Harry Potter fans who have convinced themselves Hogwarts really exists, too. I quite like the category "autobiographical fiction" as it advertises right off the bat that you're dealing with fiction. The reader can try and guess which bits are made-up and which are real, but the author isn't trying to trick anyone. I guess this leads to the more ambiguous question: when is OK to present *fact* as *fiction?* It seems to me that in most cases, that is much more acceptable than the reverse. If I decide to tell a story based on my childhood, but present it as mostly fiction, I have no obligation to announce which parts are fact.

    I wish more writers would choose "autiobiographical fiction" over "memoir." It seems half the time memoirists are outed later as liars.

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    1. Wait! Are you saying that the Universal Studios theme park is not the true Hogwarts?? Stephanie, how could you...This just can't be true!

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  8. Trueee! Most memoirs are full of lies.

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