To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
Lopate, a consummate and piquant essayist and director of Columbia University’s graduate nonfiction program, draws on his extensive teaching experience in this expert, anecdotal, funny, and frank guide to writing “intelligent, satisfying, engaging literary nonfiction.” Even in a how-to book, Lopate can’t help but write lithe and sparring personal essays, so we learn, for example, that he honed his chops as a ghostwriter. His sophisticated advice touches on psychological challenges as much as craft, such as when he names “self-hatred” as a “stumbling block” for writers, and, admitting his own audacity when writing about family and friends, instructs memoirists to be prepared to “accept the guilt” when people get upset. He also suggests developing a “tone of assertion.” Lopate draws helpful comparisons with fiction, noting that nonfiction also requires conflict and the “art of characterization” but that its story line is a thought process. Never one to accept received wisdom, Lopate encourages writers to go beyond the safe, facile, and sentimental. To see him practice what he preaches, turn to his newest essay collection, Portraits inside My Head. --Donna Seaman