Windbreak House

A Summer Message from Linda
"Summer Solstice Recipe: truth in writing"


The Summer Solstice (June 20-23) was Litha to the ancient Celts, marking the longest day of the year, the triumph of light even as the year began to decline into darkness. To grow, we must accept even the passing of the sun; we must understand that love cannot triumph over death. We must realize that the light of truth shines more brightly against the darkness of lies. No matter how hard we try to tell the truth, unbelievers will always exist, people who refuse to accept the best possible evidence.

Recently, a former student of mine persuaded his book club to read my Going Over East: Reflections of a Woman Rancher, my second published nonfiction book, which originally appeared in 1987. Fulcrum, Inc., reprinted the original edition in 2001, with an epilogue in which I brought the story up to that date.


continued . . .

To read about the book club's surprising response to the book and Linda's thoughts on truth in writing, click here or scroll down.

Linda's "recipe" for Autobiographical Writing is posted below the essay.

I wanted readers to appreciate the ranching families who love their work and provide their fellow citizens with healthy, cheap beef, so I described our daily work, the stages of a cow’s life on a ranch, and the hazards to their lives. Also, I wanted to show Americans why we should preserve the grasslands that produce our beef, and protect them from being covered by waste shipped from other regions, by asphalt, or by subdivisions. For the same reason, I also described the wild inhabitants of the grasslands, the badgers, rattlesnakes, buzzards, pronghorn, deer, burrowing owls, as well as some of the plants-- broom rape, goatsbeard, biscuit root, buffalo grass, buffaloberries, gooseberries.

My former student likes the book, calling my passage on chopping ice (so that cattle may drink) “sheer genius,” and says it caused him to remember the feel of the axe in his hands, the skittering bounce when it glanced off the ice.


But this story is about his reading group.


“They hated it . . .” said my former student. “They disliked, and were even hostile to, your book. They were reticent about telling me at first because, after all, I was the one who nominated it. But finally they did. THEY DIDN’T BELIEVE IT IS TRUE. They believe life couldn’t be that hard and still be endured. They thought you made most of it up, just to make it appear you had a hard time as a child, and those things couldn’t really have happened because a person wouldn’t ever choose to actually go back to something like that.”

He adds, “So be aware, Linda, you are a lone voice crying in the wilderness of South Dakota . . . People don’t want biography in the form of gritty autobiography. They want literary pornography instead; something they can’t smell.”

At first I was stunned and angry-- but thoughtless anger is precisely what’s wrong with a lot of the discussions occurring in America today. I prefer that people who disagree do so with civility, with reason.

When I wrote that book, in the 1980s, I had no thought that it might be unbelievable to any thinking person. Most of my neighbors did the same jobs the same way, and many of them suffered considerably more. My grandmother, to name just one of the pioneering women I’ve known, regularly killed rattlesnakes and skunks with her garden hoe, but some of the great-grandmothers in this neighborhood would have considered my life a vacation. These tough people usually had neither the time nor the inclination to write about their lives, so mine is a pale imitation of what they endured.

By 2002, things had changed in ranching, and also in the world of writing. In my introduction to Between Grass and Sky, I reported that, “Even Annie Dillard, one of my own role models since Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, admits she never had a cat; she borrowed someone else’s experience to create an effective passage. I found her tale less moving if the cat didn’t leave bloody pawprints on her chest.” I love her writing, but have never trusted her reporting since then-- but that was only the beginning.

“I’ve always thought the distinction between truth and lies was clear,” I wrote in Between Grass and Sky, “but during the past few years, I’ve collected examples of differing views on the issue of how much truth a reader can expect in a book labeled ‘nonfiction.’ While writers’ renditions of truth vary widely, most readers feel betrayed to discover that an event did not happen as written.”

I explained at some length that I had changed a couple of names in the book, since the real people had not given me permission to write about them, and combined two men into one character.

Literary hoaxes have always been with us, of course. Wikipedia’s entry on “literary hoaxes” consumes 91 pages. But recent history has brought us some spectacular examples. This is in part because publishers do not-- cannot-- investigate a writer to determine if he or she is telling the truth. Contracts protect the publisher from fraud charges, but not from people willing to lie in signing such a contract.

One of the best-known recent scams is the “Navahoax” perpetrated by Timothy Patrick Barrus, a writer of sadomasochistic erotica who wrote three fake memoirs pretending to be Nasdiij, a Navajo. Indians are popular hoax material, in part because readers know so little about the reality of Indian life, and because publishers fail to ask advice from real Indians; remember Grey Owl and Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree.

Some folks even say lying and calling it nonfiction is acceptable; there’s a category of writing labeled the “fiction memoir.” And for a truly bizarre story, read about JT LeRoy. After an hour looking to Google for information on literary hoaxes, I’m horrified, and wonder if truth itself is out of date.

As George Orwell said, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

Of course, when I write about events in my life, I risk being deceived by a faulty memory, but it is always my intention to tell the truth. If I distrust my memory, I signal that fact to the reader by saying “I think . . .” or “I imagine . . .” or “I seem to remember . . .” and other warnings that I understand the faulty and self-serving nature of memory.

My primary self-appointed job is writing for the purpose of helping people to appreciate the treasure this nation has in the grasslands of the Great Plains, and the ranchers who have preserved it for us, full of clean air, uncorrupted soil, pure water.

If I lie about anything, a reader might not believe what I say about the grasslands is true.

When a writer makes up dialogue or changes events, that’s fiction, or lying. And every time one of those liars hits the best-seller list, readers ask me, “So, did this really happen or did you make it up?” I resent that.

If I make anything up, I’ll call it fiction. If I am trying to tell the truth, I call it nonfiction.

I sympathize with and greatly pity the readers of the book group. Maybe they’ve watched a lot of “reality” TV. I have no TV connection, but my newspaper informs me about lying politicians, business leaders who won’t take responsibility for what their companies do, and ministers who deplore homosexuality but hire male prostitutes. No wonder belief has been eroded. The members of the book group are so used to a daily diet of lies they may no longer recognize truth. No wonder our society is in turmoil.

I have no idea why they disbelieved a narrative that tells about the experiences I lived through on the ranch. I doubt that many of them have lived a rural life, or have experience with the work a ranch requires. Most of the events in the book aren’t even particularly dramatic; details of ranch work in this area that could be easily verified.

I can’t convince the book club. Instead, I’ve decided to refuse to believe in them.

I’d rather believe in readers who may disagree with me, but would try to discover if I am a liar before announcing that I am. I had encouraged their reading; they might have responded to me with questions. In recent years, ranching has been the subject of many written and televised features, so research on the reality of what I wrote wouldn’t have been difficult.

Meanwhile, my former student writes that he won’t quit the book club. I’m glad. How can one change an organization, or encourage it to broaden its viewpoints, if one quits at every disagreement? In an email, he says he trusts that I can write about this incident without embarrassing him: the equivalent of a handshake agreement between us.

Here in South Dakota, million-dollar deals can still be sealed by a handshake. I don’t suppose the book club will believe that either, but I’m glad my former student is the kind of man who does.



And so we celebrate the Summer Solstice. Without lies, truth would not shine so brightly. Yet no matter how hard we try to tell the truth, we may make mistakes. All we can do is try to be honest.

Here (below) is my recipe for achieving truth in your writing, the handout I provide for writers of autobiographical material. Every one of these suggestions evolved from my examination of my own writing, and the truth I am trying to achieve in my work.


Linda M. Hasselstrom
June, 2010
Windbreak House
Hermosa, South Dakota


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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING
Linda M. Hasselstrom


My definition of autobiographical writing:

A STORY about certain CHARACTERS in a certain TIME and PLACE
(just like a novel or short story)
BUT: a novel or story is FICTION and a memoir should be NONFICTION.

It should not be necessary to say this.


Therefore the usual suggestions for writing apply:

-- Write what you know, which includes what you do for a living, as well as the other things you know how to do: hobbies, some folks call them, but include household tasks, things you have learned about dealing with children or cantankerous elders.

-- Write from who you are, which can include your body, mind, hobbies; anything can be material.

Finally, a serious and astute reader has pointed out to me that the best autobiography, or memoir, happens when the self is not so much the subject as the point of departure. The writer is more interested in drawing attention to what his mind has seen and explored, rather than to simply telling about the wonderful uniqueness of the self. And one test of a good memoir is that the author sees the humor in the self-- is able to be self-deprecating, to invite others to laugh at the author’s foibles, and to give others credit where it is due.


In deciding HOW MUCH TRUTH should be in my writing, I ask myself these questions:

1. Is it true? Memory can be faulty & anyone’s mind may unconsciously edit to enhance your role

2. Am I writing self-consciously, self-importantly-- that is, only for the purpose of demonstrating my brilliance or another of my fine qualities? If you think as you write, "The entire free world is going to read this and the people I’m writing about might be angry,” you may leave out important points. Everything you write should have some purpose, some aim, though it may not be immediately apparent.

3. Is the story I’m telling too intimate, too private to tell in public? Ask yourself, "Who are my readers and what do we have in common?” Is it relevant to reveal your political beliefs, your religious beliefs or sexual preferences?

4. Will what I write help anyone? Can you choose to violate your own privacy for a good purpose? Can omission of details give a false impression?

5. Is this story mine to tell? Will what I write hurt anyone? Will that person hurt me? Have I written about illegal activities? If you tell someone else’s story, will the truth hurt them or their descendants?

6. Have I told this story ONLY out of nostalgia? Only for its sentimental value, a dramatic effect on the reader? Have I made a human friend into a dead saint? Am I looking for sympathy?

7. Am I giving advice? Do I slap the reader in the face with the “moral” of the story? Readers prefer to find the story’s purpose themselves, not to be told what to do or think. Show the reader, don’t tell her; present evidence, not judgment.

8. Does everything I have written advance the story, the purpose, the theme? Have I included anything, as Annie Dillard says, “just for the lousy reason that it actually happened”? Have I included any incident just for its dramatic value when I know it does not advance the story?


How do you avoid the inherent dangers of autobiographical writing?

-- Keep reading autobiographical writing with a critical eye, analyzing other writers’ methods. When they write something you like, study how they do it.

-- Keep writing steadily, building experience in good taste and judgment about what should be revealed.

-- Ask honest readers to tell you, preferably before publication, if they believe you have told too much.

-- After publication, pay attention to reader response and apply what you learn to future autobiographical writing. Writing well starts with collecting material and testing it, which is hard because the real test is the response. The more you read your writing to audiences, or publish work, the more responses you get, and the better you can judge.


Deciding what to include/leave out:

Remember the Elements of Fiction: character, conflict, plot, theme; you are telling stories that happen to involve you.


When writing about yourself, watch out for:

-- self importance, self-consciousness
-- nostalgia, sentimentality
-- giving advice, presenting JUDGMENT rather than EVIDENCE


Memoir: n. 1. An account of the personal experiences of an author. 2. An autobiography. 3. A biography or biographical sketch.
American Heritage Dictionary. 4th edition.


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