What is Fiction III
Non-Fiction is...

Three weeks into the topic and I still don’t have a definition of “fiction” that covers all the territory.  Is fiction always a novel?  A short story?

Consider some of the terms used by publishers and critics: flash,‭ ‬novels,‭ ‬novellas,‭ ‬short stories,‭ ‬play scripts,‭ ‬video/movie scripts,‭ ‬narrative poetry.  These genres each tell a fictional, made-up story, yet for the most part “fiction” is thought of as novels or short stories; ”fiction” and “short fiction” as a matter of fact.  Scripts and narrative poems have formats distinct from novels, etc. but they’re usually “fiction” too.  They’re just called something else.
   
Take a look at popular non-fiction; say, The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston, which came out in 2007.  That book would never have hit the New York Times bestseller list (which it did) except that Preston, in naming the discoverers of the tallest redwoods, turned them into three-dimensional characters with goals, problems, virtues and faults.  Like in fiction.  Gavin Menzies, in 1421, The Year China Discovered America, (2003) did the same thing.  In fact, that book is written a lot like a mystery novel, which reveals a clue at a time.  It was another best-seller.

So does “fiction” amount to whatever does more than enumerate data?  No, that doesn’t consider sports reporting, which is gloriously descriptive but purely factual.  Ditto wedding announcements and annual reports to stockholders.  There must be dozens of genres for fiction that critics and publishers - and especially creative writing instructors - ignore.  

Maybe, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”  Maybe the whole argument about genre and worth is beside the point.  Maybe his is the best definition.

Here’s Chapter 14 of Dead on Dutcher’s Mountain

Fourteen
Altstock’s office, once a mud room, was cramped and messy.  Hillary’s guest chair barely fit between desk and wall, and her feet were in the way.  Piles of paper covered a credenza and a file cabinet.  Both, she noted with satisfaction, were ordinary, everyday modern institutional gray steel.  A laptop sat on a mound of papers which rested on a blotter-sized calendar and was wedged between an ‘In’ basket and a green marble mantel clock.

The interview went too smoothly.  Hillary didn’t learn much from Altstock which wasn’t already general knowledge, and she was quickly bored.

On the other hand, Altstock enjoyed himself.  He leaned back in his wood swivel chair, one boot cocked on the lip of an open drawer.  He used words like “throughput” and “intercommunicate” about employee relations, but “demagoguery” and “fanatical” about labor unions and environmental groups.  Soon with his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands waving, he waxed eloquent about--from first impressions of course, don’t misunderstand him--the lack of leadership which doomed the faltering local economy.  His gestures widened as he took on ecologists-slash-tree huggers.  His voice became resonant, his glance alternately stern and benign.  Hillary tried to connect him to her world.  Was this a man, for instance, whom her brother admired?  Did this man admire her brother?  Was he teasing her with this reactionary crap?  Was his use of so much jargon actually a conscious poke in her journalistic ribs?

“Who are your customers, Gordon?”

She hadn’t meant to ask that, and she had interrupted his intricate analysis--still as an outsider of course, but he had experienced this before--of the local Feel for the Land.

He stopped.

She continued, smiling brightly.  “How long will Dutcher’s Mine be productive?  Since they’ll be living up here, do you plan to open a school for the workers’ kids?  I haven’t seen one, and it’s an hour’s drive to the nearest grade school.  A two-hour round trip is pretty long for a six-year-old.  What’s your training program for the local workers?  Will you hire middle management locally?  Or only casual labor?  I’m sorry, one question at a time.  To whom will, say, your cobalt be sold?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I’m asking whether all this production, from such extremely low-yield ore, is for U.S. consumption only.  And will there be local jobs ten years from now?  I’m curious.”

Altstock’s hands lowered to the chair arms from behind his head.  His speech became cautious.  “Not necessarily, I suppose.  I’m afraid we don’t handle the sales end of our operation here.”

“I realize that.  I thought you might know, since you represent corporate thinking.  To Del Norte County.  I suppose there’s a federal policy somewhere about such things.  You know, strategic metals and things like that?  Or are they not regulated?  I confess my ignorance,” she lied.

Altstock cleared his throat and palmed the sides of his hair.  His smile had trouble adjusting.  “Yes,” he explained, “sales are regulated to a degree.”  He concentrated hard, and the smile gave way to a sincere vertical line between his brows.  “Of course, our sales policy scrupulously follows government guidelines.  And of course, international credit lines serve, in effect, as another set of regulatory hedges.  Naturally, as Brian can tell you, the funding of an operation this size involved international participations.  And I suppose, although I emphasize that I am not privy to all our corporate policy, that somewhere along the sales route...”  He paused, but his sincerity went on.  “...one hand washes another.”  He smiled again, charming.

Rosalie quietly entered the outer office with Karen: it was lunch time.  Hillary continued.  “So if, say, a Mexican bank holds a five percent piece of that loan, Mexico might reasonably expect to buy your chromite?”
“That sounds reasonable, yes, if a Mexican bank were part of the participation.  And they would incidentally save the additional costs involved in transport from South Africa.”

“I see.  And of course if a Pakistani-controlled bank is a participant, and Pakistan wants radioactive cobalt?”
“Altstock’s face became perfectly bland.  His foot found the floor as he cautiously came erect.  “Then Pakistan might own some right to our cobalt, even our cobalt 90.  I see your direction, of course.  You’re aware of the South African participation at headquarters.  And their record of trade with certain--extremist, I grant you--third-world countries may be cause for concern.  But I’m sure all developed nations, including South Africa, are eager to insure the world against irresponsible, or even inexperienced, parties having undue access to strategic materials.  We at Dutcher’s Mine will use our very best judgment in that regard.”  He gazed at her levelly.  “But we must make a profit in order to provide jobs.”

Hillary closed her notebook and smiled brightly.  “Of course.  Profit is essential.”  She turned graciously to include Rosalie and Karen through the open door.  “Otherwise, who would invest?  You do lunch, Gordon, and I’ll see you for a walk-through at one-thirty, right?” She deliberately reached across his desk to vigorously shake his hand, curls and breasts bobbing.

Rosalie was half-way out the door with Karen firmly in tow.  Hillary clattered across the porch and down the steps to catch up.  When she did, Rosalie rounded on her.  “What in hell was that about, Hill?  Gordon is furious!  And what was that crap about Pakistan and South Africa?”

“Just keeping him honest,” Hillary grinned, and rumpled Karen’s completely raveled braid by way of greeting.  Karen pulled close.  “I’ll bet he’s a sharp administrator.  Good representative of his type.”

“It sounded nice to me, Aunt Hillary,” Karen said.

“Thanks, love.”

“Bull,” Rosalie said.  “And by the way, Brian’s coming for lunch too.”

He was drawn, his eyes barely focused.  Karen claimed him and sat at his elbow while Rosalie served stuffed tomatoes and home-made bread.

“Daddy!  Rosalie has red towels!  And they don’t have any flowers or stripes on them!  And her bedroom has a great big picture in it of fish!  It’s as big as the whole wall!  It’s like being under the ocean when you look at it.”  The girl looked up at him hopefully.  “It reminds her of some friends she used to know.  Their names are funny, too, Orky and Icky and silly things like that.”

Brian sent an apologetic look to his hostess.  “Is that right baby?”

“Yes, it is,” Karen answered, “and I like them.  Maybe you could find some pictures like that for our house.  They would be nice in the hallway, so when you walk to the bedrooms you’d feel like you were under the ocean, you know?  Rosalie used to dive under the water a lot, and her picture reminds her of that.  It would be nice.”

“I’ll have to think about that, punkin.”

“Sounds good to me,” Hillary said.

Brian was cutting Karen’s tomato.  “But you have painted caryatids on your four-poster, with clouds painted on the ceiling.”

Hillary pretended he was teasing.  “Do you imply that I lack taste?  Restraint?”

There was a knock and the door swung open before Brian could commit the unforgivable.  Lewellyn Jones stood on the porch.  He had a six-pack of Grolsch and a tentative smile at complete variance with his furious mustachios.

“May a thirsty man find company in this gracious home?” he asked.  “I neither sing nor dance, but I come  provided with drink and lively poesy.”

Rosalie was quickly flustered.  “Sorry, Lew, no limericks.  Have you eaten?  I’ll get another chair.  Here, I’ll get some glasses.  No, give me the beer.  I’ll pour it in the kitchen.”  She fled.

Jones sat beside Karen, his eyes lingering on the kitchen door.  He said, “Brian, I can use your help.”
Brian was contemplating his untasted lunch.  “Glad to give it.”

“I’ll be wanting a personal loan for some product development.  I’ll want in the neighborhood of two-hundred fifty thousand, U.S.”  Brian had already looked away.  Jones hitched his chair closer.  “I think you’ll be interested,” he pursued.  “I’ve done some studies of polluted fish habitats and I think...”

“Where?” Brian asked absently.
“The North Sea, actually, and a bit in the Venice lagoon.”
Jones launched into a disquisition on salmon fisheries which eventually absorbed Brian, and later included Rosalie.  Hillary recognized his attempt to involve her brother in the present.  She was grateful.

By the time she met Altstock again Hillary had decided not to write against the mine, at least in this tabloid.  Voerst’s assertions about her urge to power rankled; they rankled enough to maybe be partly true.  Maybe.
Gordon led her past the buried site.  A pile of timbers at crazy angles jutted from yellow earth.  Looming over them and the future pit was the huge, grass-fringed scar of the slide.  A few azaleas throve on a bulb half-way up, where the hill had slumped intact.

“The old office?” Hillary asked, and pointed her camera for a shot of the splayed timbers.

“Yes, indeed.  It keeps me humble.  An adequate survey would have discovered that aquifer before it was tapped.”  He pointed past the Quonset hut which housed the cafeteria, toward barracks and row houses sloping south.  “Men and trucks will arrive tomorrow.  This place will be a village by next weekend.”

“And the pit begins here?”

“The pit begins here.”

The processing area was a high metal barn full of conveyors and chutes.  She took pictures of machinery, tools and equipment.  One corner held a squat interior building of white cinder blocks.  The triform insignia over its door warned of radioactive materials.

“This is the lab,” Altstock told her, “Lewellyn Jones’s domain.”

“Can we go in?”

“No; sorry.”

“Too bad.  People would like to see him in a white coat with a test tube.”

Altstock smiled.  “His lab isn’t like that.  And his assistants are the only ones who get beyond that door.”

He led her through a door-in-a-door to the outside.  The air was wine.  The unnamed stream murmured behind russet willows.  Mist clung in blue shadows, and gray-green forest bordered the rising ground to the north.  They walked through a watercolor.  Altstock was relaxed and natural outdoors, which surprised Hillary.  She tossed a pebble between her hands.  Fatigue made her head pound, and her neck and shoulders were stiff, but it didn’t matter.

“Can you get used to this much beauty?” she asked.

“Gunderson says there’s always this notion at the back of your head on a mine site; if you shout and raise hell, no one will notice.”

Hillary laughed.  The sound bounced off the slide, claps of sound.  “Are you a hell-raiser?”

“No, but I know what he means.  The hell-raisers are like Gunderson or Jones.”

“Voerst?”

Altstock surveyed the forest, the slide, then Hillary.  He had become guarded.  “Voerst is another sort.  Solid professional reputation of course, but too ego-driven even to be conventionally ambitious.”

#

Hillary joined Brian and Karen for a snack in the cafeteria.  Their table was a testimonial to carbohydrates, polyfilm wrappers and plastic forks.

“Hi, Aunt Hillary!  Look what Mr. Voerst taught me to do!”  Karen held out a small, spiraling basket made from braided grass.

“That’s beautiful, Karen,  Did you really make it?”

“Well, he helped me with the hard parts.”

The girl reached bare-handed for a head-sized slab of chocolate cake.  Hillary frowned at Brian, but he was withdrawn again.  “Would you get me a drink, hon?” she asked.

The girl’s hand stopped just shy of the cake.  “What would you like me to bring?”’

A soda.  Surprise me.”

Karen walked, then skipped as Hillary shoved a plastic fork into the slab.  She turned to Brian; he stirred.  “Beats me, Hill,” he said, “He’s a brick, and Karen’s in love with him.  He carried her on his shoulders, got rock samples for her show-and-tell, and even kept Loretta Bailey from dripping all over her.  I may have been wrong about him.”

“You may indeed.  Perhaps he just wants to make friends in a new place.”

Brian shrugged and began scoring a styrofoam cup with the tines of his fork.  The skin around his eyes was the color of putty.  His fingers shook.  He set down the fork and looked across the big hall.  “Something about him still bothers me,” he finally said, but almost at once began to banter.  “But enough of the real world!  Have you practiced our code?  Pop quiz during the banquet!”

“You wouldn’t!  The board of supes will be here.”

He produced a smile.  “Watch me.”

Karen appeared with a napkin, a straw and two of Voerst’s fingers in her hand.  Voerst carried Hillary’s soda and seemed embarrassed.

“I got lost, daddy.  But look who rescued me!”  Karen glowed up at her friend.  “I couldn’t see our table from in the line.”

Voerst set the soda on the table.  “She would have found you.  She is a very resourceful child, very charming.  Not like so many American children, mature before their time.”

Karen pulled a face.

“Thank you,” Brian said.  “I accept that as a compliment.”

“It was intended as one.  You are a fortunate man to have such a daughter.”  With a half-bow Voerst left, leaving brother and sister speculative.

Hillary’s finger began a tap-scratch; “Wqw.”

Brian’s answered.  “Wow not wqw.”