Writers write about the world around them. Does that make them abusive?
And do they owe royalties to everything and everyone who sparks their creative work?
These were among the questions explored during author Peter Rock's appearance at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland this week. His new book, My Abandonment, was loosely inspired by a local news story. And some of the resulting conversation pissed off 2GQ's roving reporter, Kristy Athens.
The gallery and reading area on the third floor of Powell’s Books was packed on Monday, March 23. Before the featured author, Peter Rock, was introduced, people chatted and employees brought out more chairs. Rock waited with his brother-in-law and tiny niece, a backpack slung casually over one shoulder. The crowd consisted of old friends and fans, and people who had seen Rock’s write-up, the day before, in the Oregonian “O” section. The interview covered how Rock researches a novel-in-progress by exploring the places a character inhabits.
In his sixth book, My Abandonment, the place is Portland’s Forest Park. Rock had been interested in a local news story: a Vietnam-vet father and teenage daughter who were found to be living in a remote area of Forest Park. They were “rescued” by do-gooders who set them up with permanent shelter and an education fund, only to slip away a short time later. Rock’s novel takes the basic premise of this true story and fleshes it out with a fictional tale.
During the Q-and-A portion of his presentation at Powell’s, Rock was asked the usual fare of how-do-you-get-your-inspiration questions, but then the discussion took a turn for the perverse: “Have you heard from the real-life father or daughter? Have you tried to find them? Do you feel guilty for appropriating their story?”
Guilty? For taking a story-kernel and planting it in the garden of his mind?
“I think you owe them some money,” declared one audience member.
Rock handled his inquisition with diplomacy and aplomb. I, on the other hand, had to clamp my fingers over my mouth so I didn’t engage in a shouting match across the bookstore. This “moral” notion is preposterous for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is no guarantee that Rock will make any money on this book. With few exceptions, writers don’t make money! Got it? And even if My Abandonment were to become a bestseller, for what does Rock owe anyone? He took a true story—not even that, a set of facts—and created a fully formed novel. All by himself. He didn’t write a “memoir” that he had embellished or made up outright. He hadn’t sensationalized the story (from a journalist friend I learned that if anything, he had downplayed it). Rock wrote a novel, which is, by definition, a made-up story.
How many creations of fiction are based on fact? I would venture to say that since fiction is written by humans, and all humans are bound to the Earth and its facts, that 100 percent of fiction is based on fact of some kind. So, gentle readers, lay off.—Kristy Athens
The Oregonian interview with Peter Rock is online at www.oregonlive.com ~ we borrowed their photo of the author in Forest Park, above (photo credit not available on their website).
