Truth Be Damned

April 17, 2008 - Robert Leiter, Literary Editor

I've never understood how the term "creative nonfiction" has gotten any sort of legitimacy -- or even any currency whatsoever -- in literary circles. It's just too easy to say that this society has blended genres so completely that there's no difference between what's real and what's make-believe. But a term such as this definitely goes a long way in explaining why we appear to be in an era of "forged" memoirs. And yet, if nonfiction can really be creative, then what's everybody exercised about? Colleges teach courses on the subject, for heaven's sake. Now that's legitimacy.

So why should we be surprised to discover that there's been another entry in this dubious genre. It appeared in the April issue of Esquire magazine and was called "The Last Days of Heath Ledger." It seems that after the talented, but troubled, actor was found dead in his New York apartment back in January, David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, told writer Lisa Taddeo to write something about the poor young man's final days.

According to an article in the March 6 New York Times arts section, written by Tim Arango, Ledger is pictured in the article "eating Moroccan food with Jack Nicholson in London, returning to New York and partying at the downtown nightspot Beatrice Inn, eating steak and eggs at a cafe in Little Italy and wolfing down a banana-nut muffin as his last morsel of food."

The problem is, yet again, none of it is exactly true. The piece, which is written in the first person as if it were the actor's diary, is a fictionalized account of Ledger's demise. The article's first sentence reads, portentously: "It becomes theatrically important, after you die, what your last few days are like."

Now you might think, as Times reporter Arango conjectured, that Esquire's Taddeo did lots of research and came up with zilch, so decided that the best thing to do was improvise. But, according to her editor, you'd be wrong because he insists the piece, which is identified as fiction, "is neither stunt nor gimmick."

"It's an earnest effort," Granger told the Times, noting that his magazine "has tried to tackle fiction using a non-fiction playbook before." He said that they've attempted to "assign fiction" in order "to make it topical, relevant." He's even gone to writers "with a headline or an idea."

"We've been doing these things to try to make fiction as current and lively as we can," said the editor, "to make it as urgent as nonfiction."

The Times piece pointed out that Esquire has had a history of such "journalistic stunts." A 1996 cover article on Allegra Coleman, a new Hollywood "it" girl, was a hoax. And, on Granger's watch, there was a 2001 profile of the R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe that was marked by a considerable "dose of fiction."

Granger contends that the Ledger piece is different from the others and to prove his point he said that he hadn't -- purposely -- featured it on the cover. Now there's a heap of journalistic integrity for you! u