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Review Essay: Reflections On Three Novels Of Carol Williams, Kristina Marcy

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The writer Jean Cocteau once descriped the fiction that he produced as "des mensonges vrais." If we agree that his description is apt, that indeed all fiction consists of true lies, then historical fiction might be considered a special genre , since it tries to blend true lies with genuine truths. Attempting to present simultaneously both the historical truth and a fictional narrative that brings that truth to life is a less straightforward task than it might seem, because the novelist and the historian must write at cross-purposes: the former is concerned with the story of individual lives, the latter …