Stranger than fiction: Q&A with David Grann

With the first big New Yorker event kicking off with tonight’s keynote address, I thought it about time we talked with regular
contributor and author of The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, David Grann on the trials and tribulations of writing nonfiction.

For those hanging on my every word, you’ll remember I reviewed David’s first book The Lost City of Z in a previous post.

In your latest book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes you tackle a collection of ‘fantastical’ true-to-life mysteries, many of which could easily qualify as fiction. What attracts you to the challenge of nonfiction writing?

I’m drawn to non-fiction because of its very nature—its quest to understand some hidden truth about characters or events. Many of the characters I write about are fabulists or imposters, but the crux of reporting is to separate facts from fiction. To me, the most interesting stories are those that may seem fantastical but are true.

The quote from Holmes “Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” has been used to describe the theme of the book. With advancements in modern technology bridging time and space between cultures and evaporating mysteries of the past, do you believe this sentiment will always ring true?

I do. Technology can never resolve the riddle of the human condition.

Have you ever had a situation where the truth eluded you such that you couldn’t complete a particular story?

That’s a great question. None of us have the powers of Sherlock Holmes. We cannot see everything and understand everything. There are details that elude me in any story I do. Yet rather than undermine a story I think these gaps, these doubts, can also deepen a story. It shows the way the world really is. And so instead of abandoning a story I try to incorporate that incompleteness into the narrative. Which is why many of the mysteries I write about end with a smidgen of doubt.

Through electronic distribution your writing (both in novel form and journalistic) has more global reach and exposure than ever before. How has your ‘ideal reader’ changed over time?

To me, the ideal reader is anyone who reads, who engages with a text. Technology hasn’t changed that. Yet it allows writers to reach more of them. And technological advancements have also enabled a reporter to no longer be as confined by geography and to find stories on the opposite end of the earth.

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Notice how my questions are longer than David’s answers? That is the sign of a interviewer at the top of his game…Those lucky enough to nab tickets to one of the New Yorker events (tickets are still available for tonight’s keynote) will certainly get much more David, and much less of me, this weekend.