By David Himmel

This story was originally written for BUGHOUSE! #41 in Chicago. The topic was Fiction: Make It Up vs. Living It or Who Has the Right to Make Up What Stories? It was debated between David Himmel and Paul Teodo. Himmel won the debate.

Write what you know. That’s the unwritten law of literature. Take an experience and turn it into a story. But that story doesn’t have to be a memoir. It can be. But it can inspire you to write something else. Historical fiction. An essay. A poem. And, of course, the most difficult of literary vehicles, fiction. Writing what you know doesn’t mean writing exactly what happened, or even exactly what you know. It’s a starting point. It’s an idea generator. That’s what makes fiction such a cool genre.

An author can sit down with the inspiration of a horse they knew as a kid and that can turn into a tale of adventure on the back of a space dragon on the planet Festerfart in the Browntrow solar system, some fifty-seven billion light years from our own. An author can witness the beating of an elderly black man by police—probably in Chicago—and write a heart-wrenching novel that presents parallel storylines—that of the beaten man and that of the cop—giving us, the reader, a look into the differences and similarities that arise following such an event. An author can think about a pre-teen crush thirty years later and be inspired to write a romantic comedy about two people finding love after devastating divorces.

An author does not need to have lived the story to write it. They do not need to be a space traveler to tell you about the dragon on planet Festerfart. They don’t need to be an old black man or a cop to tell you about their stories? An author who writes fiction needs only to have an imagination and the commitment to being honest in their world of make-believe. If an author is writing a pretend story that could happen in the real world, they would be doing themselves and the reader a favor by doing research where research is needed.

American Dirt is a novel by Jeanine Cummins. It’s the fictional story of a Mexican mother and son’s journey to the border after a cartel murders the rest of their family. Stephen King lauded the book. So did Oprah. She said of the book in a video posted on Twitter: “I was opened, I was shook up, it woke me up, and I feel that everybody who reads this book is actually going to be immersed in the experience of what it means to be a migrant on the run for freedom. So I want you to read.”

This thing was gonna be huge. And then the backlash began. It has been called stereotypical. Cummins has been accused of appropriation because she identifies as white, although she does have a grandmother who’s Puerto Rican. The question and controversy that encircles this book is who has a right to tell what stories.

So, who has a right to tell what pretend stories? The answer is simple: Anyone who doesn’t suck at writing.

John Green wrote The Fault in Our Stars. Should he not have written it? He’s not a teenager. He’s not riddled with cancer. So what the fuck does he know? And by writing that story, as an adult male, did he take the story away from a young, cancer patient who wants to kiss a boy? Did J.K. Rowling appropriate Harry Potter from teenage wizards? Of course not.

You don’t have to be the thing you’re writing about. Unless you’re writing a memoir. Like James Frey’s Million Little Pieces, another book Oprah got wet all over. And you’ll recall that it turned out Frey’s book was more fiction than memoir. So, why didn’t he just position it as fiction? Because he’s an idiot. Because he felt it would have more impact if it were a real story. The thing is, whether it’s entirely fiction or just partly fiction, it is still a good story. But by writing a quote-unquote memoir about drug addiction, did Frey cause the market to seize up? NO MORE MEMOIRS ABOUT ADDICTION! THIS GUY DID IT! Of course not. Every addiction story is different. Every memoir, every piece of fiction. And if something isn’t, then it’s either derivative because the author is lazy, or it’s plagiarism.

Cummins’ American Dirt doesn’t take the story of immigrants away from actual immigrants. They have their stories. They should tell them. And here’s where the rub is: they must have the platform to tell those stories. That is, publishers ought to be looking for diverse voices. Not simply to fill a skin color or gender quota, but because diversity is a great thing for creativity. I don’t know what the publishing industry is like for a person of color. I do know that I’ve come across a lot of agents and publishers who are looking specifically for women and people of color, which rules me out. Which is why I think the diversity should be about the stories. What’s good? What’s got a new approach to a familiar tale? Perhaps that comes from fewer white men. Sure, I don’t care. That just makes me have to work harder to be better. Feels like a good challenge to have.

I do not want to squash the voices of any group of people. Hell, if a black Muslim wanted to write a novel about a family of European Jews fleeing Nazi occupation, I’d be fine with it. As long as it was a good story- treated its characters with kindness, was honest and true in its depiction of how realistic events and characters happened, acted and reacted.

That said, if there are two fantastic stories about immigrant families fleeing the cartels for America, and one is written by a white lady, the other written by a Latina woman, publish them both. There is plenty of space for these stories on our shelves and in our hearts.