[This past
weekend was the 2018
Northeast MLA convention in Pittsburgh. It was a great time as usual, and
this week I’ll highlight some standout moments and conversations. Leading up to
a weekend post on how you can get involved in this great organization!]
On two takeaways
from our inspiring opening night creative event.
As illustrated
by Monique
Truong’s opening night reading at my 2016 Hartford convention, NeMLA has
featured an impressive opening night creative writer and event for many years.
But beginning with this year’s convention and going forward we’re trying
something different: “NeMLA
Reads Together,” where all attendees are asked to read a particular
creative work (for the 2019 Convention
in Washington, DC it’ll be Imbolu
Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers, of
which we handed out free copies at Sunday’s membership brunch!) and then we
invite the author for that opening night event. Our first text was Stewart O’Nan’s wonderful historical novel
West of Sunset
(2015), an account of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s challenging and compelling final
years of life working as a screenwriter in Hollywood, and for Thursday night’s
opening event our NeMLA Board member Christina
Milletti masterfully interviewed O’Nan about his book and many other
topics.
O’Nan’s as
talented and engaging of a storyteller as you would expect if you’ve read any
of his books, and the entire event was both fun and thought-provoking. But I
would highlight two particular takeaways about historical fiction as a genre
and what it can help us see and understand. Anyone who’s read this blog (or my
latest book) knows that I’m a
big historical fiction fan, and especially that I believe it can help us
engage with the past at least as fully and meaningfully as any non-fictional
genre or educational setting can. In describing his own historical subjects, O’Nan
very clearly laid out one of the main reasons for that possibility: that
historical fiction can investigate and portray histories and stories for which
there simply aren’t enough documentary evidence for other genres to engage. In
his final Hollywood years, Fitzgerald was living in the same apartment complex
as both Dorothy
Parker (with whom he had had a previous
romantic affair) and Humphrey Bogart, but relatively little is known for
certain about their interactions during this time period. That might limit
historians or biographers, but it offers instead an opportunity for O’Nan, and
he takes advantage of it to craft portrayals of Parker and Bogart (among many
others) that to my mind are both true to the details of these figures and help
us consider their identities in historical, cultural, and contemporary contexts.
I would also
argue that the O’Nan event offers a potent lesson for those (like me) working
to produce public scholarship that engages American readers and contributes to
our collective conversations. O’Nan’s wonderful skill as a storyteller doesn’t
just reflect his fictional talents or make for good listening during a
conference event (although yes on both counts); it also and crucially draws us
in to nuanced biographical, cultural, and historical topics and questions. In
the course of the interview O’Nan discussed such difficult and thorny topics as
Fitzgerald’s
alcoholism, his wife Zelda’s
bipolar disorder, and gender images and limitations in early 20th
century Hollywood and America. His emphasis on storytelling didn’t in any way
minimize or make light of these challenging topics; quite the opposite, it
allowed him to draw us into their details and specifics, a vital first step in
any sustained engagement with any such topics or their broader contexts and
meanings. For too long, scholarly writing was generally seen as antithetical to
(or at least entirely distinct from) narrative or storytelling; I believe that
those attitudes are shifting, that we’re collectively beginning to recognize
the vital role that story plays in connecting to and engaging audiences, and
that had certainly better be the case. As O’Nan proved, stories are a crucial
part of connecting audiences to any and all histories.
Next recap
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. NeMLA
responses or thoughts? Other organizations or conferences you’d highlight?
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