True Stories, Well Told: From the First 20 Years of Creative Nonfiction Magazine

by Lee Gutkind (Editor), Hattie Fletcher (Editor), Susan Orlean (Introduction)

Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of it’s a rich mix of flavors, ideas, voices, and techniques—some newly invented, and others as old as writing itself. This collection of 20 gripping, beautifully-written nonfiction narratives is as diverse as the genre Creative Nonfiction magazine has helped popularize. Contributions by Phillip Lopate, Brenda Miller, Carolyn Forche, Toi Derricotte, Lauren Slater and others draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood. Their stories shed light on how we live.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Writing, Anthologies, Short Stories

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 2014

About the author

Lee Gutkind has been recognized by Vanity Fair as “the godfather behind creative nonfiction.” A prolific writer, he has authored and edited over twenty-five books, and is the founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction, the first and largest literary magazine to publish only narrative nonfiction. Gutkind has received grants, honors, and awards from numerous organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Science Foundation. A man of many talents, Gutkind has been a motorcyclist, medical insider, sports expert, sailor, and college professor. He is currently distinguished writer in residence in the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes at Arizona State University and a professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication.

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe my problem is that I didn't know what "creative nonfiction" was going into this book. Reading the back, I was intrigued. I love nonfiction! I read the back cover copy and saw "draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood" and foolishly assumed that that meant I'd read stories about healthcare, history, butterflies, and motherhood.

When I read the introduction, in which Susan Orlean writes about a great article she read about a small-town doctor and how it made a huge impression on her, I was like, "Great! That sounds like the kind of thing I want to read." I read the butterfly story, which was an mixture of describing butterfly migration, how humans are destroying the planet, and the author's allergies, and thought, "OK." But then story after story focused primarily on the author--they were almost all "I" stories (with a few exceptions). Only one story didn't have any first-person narration.

Which is not to say that the stories weren't good. Some weren't my cup of tea at all--and I also don't need that many meditations on death. And I couldn't make it through the editor's story of how he created Creative Nonfiction magazine; I couldn't even make it a couple pages through. It epitomized what I didn't like in this book.

Some of the stories were quite good and engaging. I loved the one on Finnish baseball, and was moved by the night nurse story. I don't know whether the problem was more the book, or my expectations of the book. Either way, I went from having an interest in creative nonfiction when I picked up this book, to having zero interest in it when I finished.

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gutkind's collection of some of the best essays from the journal, Creative Nonfiction, this is an eclectic mix of transporting essays. While all are beautifully written, the stand-outs are those which are as informative as they are personal. As a collection, the whole will appeal to any reader who wants a better feel for creative nonfiction or personal narrative essays, and also to readers who want a fast taste of many honored nonfiction writers.

That said, I have to admit that I found many of these essays to be rather over-written and self-involved. In some cases, I was simply bored, and glad to be done with a given essay. More often, I did enjoy the short engagements with different worlds and different authors, but I have to say that reading this didn't make me feel more likely to pick up the journal itself. I expected a better feel for creative nonfiction, and a bit more respect for the genre, along with entertainment. We'll just say that I got some enjoyment, and some entertainment, but not nearly as much understanding or entertainment as I expected in any case. I think my nonfiction reads will continue to be lengthier reads instead of essays like this.

[Laura Larosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love creative non-fiction. For those who aren't familiar with, or don't know "exactly" what it is, this is a great starter kit.
Here were some old friends I'd met in The Best American Essay collections, and writers I had not read before. All enjoyable, all uniquely their own style within a frame that is new and not new, but always personal, always revealing something to the reader about themselves, the reader, and the world we all inhabit.

Definitely worth a read :)

[Nate Hawthorne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting true stories. No particular form, but short enough to wet the pallet. Good diversionary reading.

[Risa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been reading creative nonfiction books and short stories for many years, I guess as long as I’ve been reading fiction or least since I was a teenager but I didn’t know what this type of writing was called before Lee Gutkind named it. In October 1997 James Wolcott, a colleague of Lee Gutkind in the English department of the University of Pittsburgh, roasted him (as the "godfather behind creative nonfiction") and the journal he founded in 1993, Creative Nonfiction, on the pages of Vanity Fair. Gutkind was devastated. The article, entitled Me Myself & I “lambasted most creative nonfiction writers as ‘navel gazers’ writing, ‘civic journalism for the soul.’ Creative nonfiction, he [Wolcott] said, is a ‘sickly transfusion, whereby the weakling personal voice of sensitive fiction is inserted into the beery carcass of nonfiction.’” [page 337 of True Stories, Well Told]. However, within a few hours, Lee’s attitude about the article changed when another of his colleagues, Bruce Dobler, ran into him on the elevator “and then dropped to his knees, grabbed my hand, and said, with breathless reverence, ‘I kiss your hand, Godfather.’ And then, as I watched, confused and astounded, he did just that - with a loud, wet smmmmmmmmmmack!
With that simple gesture, Bruce helped me remember the Oscar Wilde quip: ‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about’.
It’s true; to a certain extent, it’s good just to be noticed, and being lambasted in Vanity Fair did bring attention to the genre. In 1997, when Wolcott disparaged me as the godfather, many people were writing and reading creative nonfiction, which, of course, is why it was a topic to target. But Wolcott didn’t realize that few people knew what to call the form, how to write it, or where to try to publish their work. With Wolcott’s article and Vanity Fair’s million-plus readers, people began to understand that what they were reading and writing had a name - a label. From that time on, creative nonfiction - the literature of reality - became the genre to contend with in the literary world, an expanding literary movement with unbridled momentum. After that, for me and for the journal and the genre there was no turning back.” [pages 340 and 341].
I realize that the above is a long quote but I believe it is important for anyone who wants to write and/or read creative nonfiction, that we should know who made it into such a major part of the literary world and that was Lee Gutkind. In addition to reading True Stories, Well Told, I have read In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, both edited by Lee Gutkind. Although I love reading novels, I do not like fictional short stories but the above two books of short creative nonfiction stories are fantastic! There was only one article in True Stories, Well Told that I didn’t finish reading which was Pesapallo: Playing at the Edge of the World. It is about a specific type of baseball played in Finland and the article is 16 pages long. It just got too boring. Lots of people would say that the game of baseball, itself, is boring (not me…I love my Toronto Blue Jays), so reading about it could be a bit tiresome.
I can’t decide which is my favourite article out of the 20 that Gutkind included in True Stories, Well Told but I can tell you which are my three favourite ones. They are: The World Without Us: A Meditation by Carolyn Forche; Beds, by Toi Derricotte; and, Without a Map by Meredith Hall. Fair warning, they are not uplifting stories.
I plan to read Gutkind’s other edited Best Creative Nonfiction collections, a book called High Notes: Selected Writings by Gay Talese, Introduction by Lee Gutkind and Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and Other Essays, also by Gay Talese because of how highly Gutkind wrote of Talese. Actually, I am currently reading the classic In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and am extremely impressed by it, not just how the story is told, but the writing is amazing. So far I am rating it 5 stars.

[Laura]

I decided I didn’t want to finish this book several months ago and brought it back to the library. I have been trying to say so on the website every time I get another email about it, and it finally worked today. It’s not that I’m a dummy about using the computer either, I use it all the time at home and at work. I tried to remove myself from your emailing list today and I guess I’m going to struggle with that for awhile before I’m successful. I work at the library and I thought it would be nice to share titles with my mom and 2 sisters but it’s not worth the trouble. I found the unsubscribe! Bye bye!

[Elizabeth Mabrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

An uneven collection of stories--some were great, and some were meh. That's normal for an anthology, though for a collection of creative nonfiction there wasn't a ton of variety. Every story was a first person, memoirish piece. Which I'm not necessarily against, but again, not much variety for a collection that was meant to showcase their magazine.

But for me, the collection hit a brick wall at the last fifth, which was all dedicated to the founder of the magazine and how it came into being. Almost 50 pages dedicated to this story, and it didn't engage me at all.

I love nonfiction and couple of these stories, but I don't feel like it's the best representation of the genre.

[Jesse Stoddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fantastic introduction to the relatively new genre of Creative Nonfiction, sometimes called true storytelling, literary journalism, narrative journalism, or ‘new’ journalism. The type includes narrative and memoir and other long-form journalism. I prefer the magazine's tag line; true stories, well told.

I couldn’t put this down. It reads like cliff-hanging fiction or mystery. It inspired me enough to subscribe to the magazine and get all the other books. I find the essays in it inspiring, thought-provoking, and entertaining. I highly recommend this book.

[RoseMary author · Rating 4 out of 5]

These assorted stories are as diverse as the backgrounds of the authors. Compiled by the team at Creative Non-Fiction (in my town of residence: Pittsburgh), the narratives range across a broad spectrum of memoir. Reading these authors is a good way to contemplate life--or the writing of your own memoir.

[suec · Rating 5 out of 5]

A more-interesting selection that you normally see in this type of anthology - there are contributions from authors who aren't insanely famous, as well as online writers. A real feel for the breadth of the format of creative nonfiction.

[Lorna Keach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was crying about 80% of the time. Some amazing creative nonfiction from brilliant minds. (Gutkind's introduction was a bit long winded and pompous, though. He's better when he lets other people talk.)

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's rare that I read a book of essays and enjoy all of them, but that was pretty much the case here. I am ordering the other book in this series because I enjoyed this one so much.

[Dawn Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Lots of good stories.

[Brian S · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little uneven, but with some good pieces.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this collection. Perhaps my own expectations worked against me or the structure of the essays I found was not in line with what I think of as creative nonfiction. Whatever the cause, I was disappointed, even by several authors I have read before and enjoyed. Some of these essays I genuinely loved, most I liked, and a few I managed to complete through sheer grit. With a couple of exceptions, these are depressing essays, and not often enlightening. Many concern death, and only a few involve information or a helpful uplifting of hope at the end.

Gutkind's description of the books and authors who most impressed and influenced him in his youth—Kerouac, Talese, Hemingway, Mailer, etc.—clarified both where the editor was coming from and why I was not so impressed as I had hoped to be by his choices. He declares On the Road to be a much-reread favorite. I find it a tedious yawn.

When the terms "chick lit" and "chick flick" began to appear, I immediately identified a genre of literature and film beloved by men (particularly, though not exclusively white men) that describe a world view where I am nonexistent or marginal participant. I countered with my own offensive term: dick lit. Despite efforts to include writing from a range of sources, this is dick lit. Not bad dick lit, but still dick lit.

I once ruined a commission by leaving the "u" out of "Vancouver", but I was the age Gutkind was when he made a similar error. He was booted from one of his earliest writing jobs by leaving the "t" out of "immortality." Unfortunately, there are still many typos throughout this book including missing letters or misspelled words, punctuation transposed or missing, verb tense errors, misuse of lay/lie, incomplete sentences (ex: "I'd been asked by Paolo Corso to contribute an essay to an anthology about water by." Yes, it ends at "by" and I have no idea where the sentence was meant to go.). All these years later, yes, I have become that reader.

My summary of the essays might be regarded as containing spoilers:

Orlean's intro is sharp and useful, "The Butterfly Effect" was interesting (though it was a hundred pages before I understood that the falling butterfly population, loss of habitat, and the death of the key interviewee of the essay were a warning of what was to come in the collection), stupidly feeding raccoons and dealing with cougars (why do men insist on calling them "lions"?), distance from an abusive father, another abusive father, "Breastfeeding Dick Cheney" (seriously, that is the title), teaching death (also the title), a mother desperate to see her seriously disabled daughter working a paying job (which she does—the girl works all day facing a wall because when she can see people she is too gregarious—and that is the happy ending), a doctor still trying to get over having mistakenly sent a patient home to die, breast cancer, non-recovery from successive traumatic brain injuries, another abusive father, an addicted and abusive wife, "Without a Map" from the memoir of the same name (depressing but gorgeous and with a clear and modestly hopeful ending—I would read the book), a brief meditation about basketball and children (sweet), Finnish baseball (lots of fun), wine into water and how south Italy suffered (informative and timely and another of my favorites), inherited deafness and nonstandard signing on a remote island, a doctor inexplicably kind to a dying patient, and Gutkind's explanation and defense of the genre, plus payback for a very old attack that helped define creative nonfiction.

[E. Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of creative nonfiction, from one of my favorite literary magazines of the same name. With many pieces having been selected from Creative Nonfiction's themed issues, essay topics range from travel and sports to healthcare and environmental justice. The entire collection is topped off by a long essay from Lee Gutkind—the founding editor of Creative Nonfiction Magazine and assumed "godfather of the creative nonfiction genre"—about his early experiences founding the magazine and giving creative nonfiction writers a home for their work.

My absolutely favorite piece in the collection is the utterly mesmerizing "Without a Map" by Meredith Hall. Hall describes her experience walking across Europe in the wake of her teenage pregnancy, the subsequent experiences of being disowned by her parents and putting her baby boy up for adoption and, ultimately, the loss of the life she had imagined for herself growing up. Hall's story is haunting and heartbreaking, detailing the kind of journeys that people simply don't—or cannot—take anymore, both spiritually and geographically. This piece showcases the amazing generosity that can be discovered from trusting the world, and the possibilities that arise in a life in which the is nothing left to lose.

Another dazzling piece is “The World Without Us: A Meditation”, by Carolyn Forché; who finds out she may have, and then ultimately does have, cancer. “The World Without Us” takes readers through a series of moments throughout this time in Forché’s life, marked by her internal meditations on life, death, survival and what it means to be human.

Jim Kennedy’s “End of the Line” was equally striking, portraying a sequence of images: traveling the Orange Line in Boston, saving a drunk man from getting run over by the subway, Kennedy’s sister camping on Assateague Island and dreaming that she had died—all leading to the true subject of the piece, the loss of Kennedy’s son Thomas, to drowning, during an unexpectedly calm day at the beach.

“Teaching Death” by Todd May, was oddly comforting to me—particularly odd since I don’t know if the intent of the essay was to comfort its readers. May discusses death versus the act of dying; living immortally versus living day-by-day; and the “in-between” state that we often live our lives in now—having a vague awareness of death, and perhaps an even more vague awareness of life.

Finally, Jane Bernstein’s “Rachel at Work: Enclosed, a Mother’s Report” was an intimate and honest portrait of the daily life of a young handicapped woman—Rachel, Bernstein’s daughter—and the responsibilities and worries that fall on families when state programs can no longer assist a handicapped individual.

Although these were my favorite pieces, each story in this collection is deserving of a shout-out. They were some of the best of what the creative nonfiction genre has to offer.

[Breanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway. It is a great collection of nonfiction and shows the diversity of the genre. It was nice to get the author's retrospective view on their individual piece; it helped elucidate the essays in a way the reader would not otherwise get with a standalone essay, or even a collection of essay from a single author.

There are of course hits and misses, but this is not an indication of poor writing, only a matter of preference. "Charging Lions" stayed with me, just as the young raccoon stayed with its author, Chester F. Philips. Harrison Scott Key's "The Wishbone" illuminated the complicated relationship between father and son while still delivering a lighthearted story. And "Teaching Death” made me wish I was present to take Todd May's course.

Some of the essays seemed overlong and were exhausting to read, but this may have to do with the genre. These are real stories about real people and a connection is formed between the reader and author through the page, and being bombarded with the realities of someone else's life can be a bit taxing.

This book would be a great introduction for anyone interested in creative nonfiction.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I have a hard time reading memoirs because either the writing style doesn’t work for me, or the author’s identity and personality clashes strongly with my own. True Stories, Well Told contains works that made me overjoyed, made me want to cry, and made me able to empathize and connect with the writers themselves. The stories are just short enough that I want to go off and look for more of the authors’ works afterwards, and this collection has made memoirs and creative nonfiction all the more appealing for me.

(Read full review here.)

Paper Breathers (Book Reviews & Discussions)

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous stuff.



No -- seriously. There's a wide variety to the pieces, with serious pieces balanced against funny ones, short ones against long ones, stuff centered in America and stuff not. Although I was first put off by the ragged right-hand margin, it wound up giving the book a good feel of immediacy and urgency. My only problem is that I was depressed a bit afterwards, since I know I cant't write as good as the selections here.

Viva creative nonfiction!

[Jason Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is a great sampling from CNF magazine's publication history. While other publications may have different preferences for nonfiction publication, this book showcases the values of CNF journal by including well-written, active essays on intriguing subject matter. Editor Lee Gutkind's closing essay "The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting" is a particularly valuable history and discussion of the rise of CNF Magazine in the face of a traditional literary atmosphere along with Gutkind's personal role in that development.

[Little · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not every single story in this collection was a huge hit for me, but more of them were excellent than were ok, and none of them was bad. Well, I did skip all but the first two pages of the editor's self-congratulatory opus on why creative nonfiction is so fantastic and the work of his magazing is so groundbreaking. But of the stories themselves, there were none to skip. They run the gamut from laugh-out-loud funny to heartbreaking to fascinatingly full of facts you never knew. The Wishbone was even good enough to recommend it to my husband.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

How much better it is for a book when you are the groundbreaker! True Stories, Well Told suffers only in comparison to the masterpiece of creative nonfiction, Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction. Had there been no TACCN, I’m quite certain True Stories would be my call for a creative nonfiction textbook. It’s very good. But it didn’t leave me breathless the way Touchstone did. True Stories. True. Well Told? Yes. Pretty well told. Just not brilliant.

[Neil Vandenberge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book through goodreads and was already a big fan of the Moth which is basically a spoken version of creative non fiction. I have to say these stories are written so well that even the experiences I had a harder time identifying with hit me like a good short story.

[Vikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

True Stories, Well told was edited by Lee Gutkind and Hattie Fletcher. These are stories from the first twenty years of Creative Nonfiction Magazine. I enjoyed most of them. If I wasn't interested in a story, I did skip it. I am glad I read this book.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of twenty years of short stories published in a creative nonfiction publication were quite enjoyable though I did skip a few.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

My students and I have enjoyed reading and discussing these stories. Some have attempted to mimic their favorites.

[Roberto Iacobacci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb nonfiction.

[Amy Case · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new genre for me--some I really enjoyed, others not so much.

[Martha Mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another uni set text. It is what it is! Some amazing stories narrated by extraordinary ordinary women.