The whole point of non-fiction is the titilation that it actually happened. Sure, mature adults realize that no one has a perfect memory, and that different perspectives happen over the one same event. But non-fiction gives us an actual, real-life PERSECTIVE.

I write cheezy fictional noir short stories. I read lots of real-life Mafia non fiction. The action in my stories is much livelier, and my characters are much more relatable and interesting, compared with the Mafia non-fiction. Yet these true life stories are obviously more appealing. Even with talent, fiction struggles: how many real-life Mafia documentaries need to be made before the culture produces a Sorpranos? The thing about the non-fiction is that you might one day see the person, or visit their house, or at least wind up in the same part of the same city one day. One Teflon Don is worth a thousand James Gandolfini's.

So where do we draw the line indeed? James Frey has, inadvertently, created a new genre: the semi-fiction. I think this is perfectly valid, as a genre. It's a little like "Survivor" and those other "reality" television shows: yes it has many more "common" and "real" points about it, but we all realize that the "reality" is itself staged somewhat. Reality shows don't draw the same prestige as documentaries, and well they shouldn't.

Sedaris has basically signaled that we're not to take him seriously, that he's giving us "Reality Fiction" as opposed to reality. As long as we're all clear on that, and as long as reviewers keep that in mind, what's the harm? This is America, and there is no law against being a self-important fool.

"Self-important fool," eh? Give me a break. I sense some definite snobbery here, but it ain't coming from Sedaris. Maybe you need to look outside the "mafia" genre to see that nonfiction has no inherent value over fiction.

But, just for the hell of it, let's stick with your true-crime preferences. Who are you to say that the mass of true-crime documentaries (most of which litter MSNBC on the weekends) are "obviously more appealing?" That might be obvious to you because they're your obvious personal preference; but if documentaries were so drastically more compelling than fictional series like the Sopranos PBS's ratings would look a lot more like HBO's, don't you think?

I could more convincingly argue that fictionalized Mafia stories are far more valuable than "real" Mafia stories because they make the story more accessible to people who don't give a damn about the Mafia in the first place. I'm sorry. I just wouldn't go weak at the knees at the idea that I'm in the same room as the Teflon Don (not that that's been possible since he bit the big one in 2002). But when the Mafia is presented as it is in The Godfather, with all its fakery--fake characters, fake relationships, fake music, fake sets--the sheer craftsmanship draws me into the story.

Not that I don't care for documentaries. A well crafted documentary is a wonderful thing and, yes, perhaps one of the reasons I'm drawn into a good documentary is becuase its true. But there are so many other reasons, many of which have to do with the way the subject is presented. No documentary is merely objective. Some are as fully crafted as Michael Moore's work; others finese their subjects more delicately. But each one is a "semi-fiction," as you call it, or perhaps a semi-fact. (By the way, James Frey is hardly the first memorist to do this; he didn't invent any genre. Maxine Hong Kingston famously combined fact and fiction within the memoir/postmodern genre(s) in 1975's The Woman Warrior for one example, and there are plenty of instances that predate that.)

Hard as it might be for you to imagine it, some people are able to read fiction as if it "actually happened." Some people are able to go to plays and movies, read novels, and watch television and get lost in the narrative. It's called suspension of disbelief. They don't sit there bemoaning the absence of the "titilation" of the real. The emotions are real; the reader/viewer's perceptions and reactions are real. If you need documentaries to take you to that place of emotional response, by all means watch them. But don't claim that Sedaris "signals" that his work can be dismissed or that he's a self-important fool for not adhereing to your own arbitrary rules for memoir-writing. We haven't all agreed that Sedaris is writing "Reality Fiction," whatever that means. Some of us are waiting for you to come up with a more compelling differentiation between what is reality and what is fiction to begin with.

Well said, Duke!

I always picked my books from Sedaris in fiction sections. The same can be said about Dave Eggers memoir "A heartbreaking work of a staggering genius."

Well said indeed Duke, but in my opinion wrong nonetheless. I'm with the original poster.

I think, perhaps, the original poster's use of the word "appealing" was unfortunate, but I do get his/her point. The real-life space race may be less appealing and entertaining than Star Wars, but it is much more compelling. Have you ever watched the "Faces of Death" movies? I watched them as a teenager and they are still vivid in my memory. How many thousands of fictional movie deaths have I seen since then?...none of which has a fraction of the resonance of the dude getting killed by a bear while his family videos his escapades. Despite holding this opinion, I assure you I'm completely capable of suspending disbelief, and I regularly enjoy fictional books and movies. I think this suggests that the argument is framed wrongly, but my 4-year-old is yelling in my ear and I can't think right now.

I will say, in closing, that the writing of the yourself and the OP is clear and enjoyable to read.

Cheers.

Can nobody be trusted to write the truth? Next thing, you'll tell me that Dave Barry has never been attacked by squirrels.

Seriously, though, the line between exaggeration and lies has somewhat to do with expectation. Does the reader have a valid expectation that every part of a funny anecdote is 100% god's honest truth? Isn't a kernel of truth about all that one expects from such stories?

I never meant to imply that fiction is better or worse. It's just different. Non-fiction is fiction too, in a way, because you have to suspend the disbelief that the author doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

But that's my point: suspension of disbelief works because it relates to real life; non-fiction, therefore, has a lower threshold for being 'believable' because we can relate it directly to the world we live in, instead of having to imagine it all up. I am not saying that documentaries are 'truer' in spirit; I'm saying that it's because of things like documentaries and news shows and blog reports that suspension of disbelief in fiction is even POSSIBLE. Perhaps one Tony Soprano is indeed more worth-while to our culture than John Gotti. But no one would understand why they should even care about the Sopranos if they didn't already have a concept of the Mafia, or at least organized crime, in their heads.

Science fiction is often the most fantastic genre, but even then if the science is bad, then it damages the story and takes the reader out of their suspension of disbelief. So too, if a reader goes into a book trying to relate it directly to experience, and then learns that part of the book never existed outside the words themselves, than that damages the suspension of disbelief. What was once a compelling work, as another poster put it, is now merely interesting. (Perhaps more interesting than 'compelling' documentaries, but still).

And you obviously don't like Mafia stories, real life OR fictional. One of the most entertaining things about the modern-day Mafia is that many of the REAL, ACTUAL Mafia leaders style themselves off of the Godfather movies (a fact touched upon in the Sopranos). Obviously, their disbelief was suspended until fermented into reality. This fact makes BOTH the fiction and the real-life stories more compelling, at least to my mind.

And I think he's a self-important fool for making a big deal defending the veracity of his work. If someone took Dave Barry to task for not having ever actually been attacked by squirrels, I doubt he would have gotten so up-in-arms.