The Story is True: The Art and Meaning of Telling Stories

by Bruce Jackson

Making and experiencing stories, remembering and retelling them is something we all do. We tell stories over meals, at the water cooler, and to both friends and strangers. But how do stories work? What is it about telling and listening to stories that unites us? And, more importantly, how do we change them-and how do they change us? In The Story Is True, author, filmmaker, and photographer Bruce Jackson explores the ways we use the stories that become a central part of our public and private lives. He examines, as no one before has, how stories narrate and bring meaning to our lives, by describing and explaining how stories are made and used. The perspectives shared in this engaging book come from the tellers, writers, filmmakers, listeners, and watchers who create and consume stories. Jackson writes about his family and friends, acquaintances and experiences, focusing on more than a dozen personal stories. From oral histories, such as conversations the author had with poet Steven Spender, to public stories, such as what happened when Bob Dylan "went electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Jackson also investigates how "words can kill" showing how diction can be an administrator of death, as in Nazi extermination camps. And finally, he considers the way lies come to resemble truth, showing how the stories we tell, whether true or not, resemble truth to the teller. Ultimately, The Story Is True is about the place of stories-fiction or real-and the impact they have on the lives of each one of us.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 2007

About the author

Bruce Jackson is an American folklorist, documentary filmmaker, writer, photographer. He is SUNY Distinguished Professor and the James Agee Professor of American Culture at the University at Buffalo. Jackson has edited or authored books published by major university presses. He has also directed and produced five documentary films.

Reviews

[Tory S. Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My area of research is cognitive narrative – that is, the stories we live by. This book was a pleasant surprise for me as Jackson looks precisely at that. Were I to rename it, I'd call it "The Story Isn't True," as Jackson looks at that which is constantly true about stories and, reflexively, that which is constantly false – using examples from his considerable experience, from films to literature to oral stories, to elaborate on the dynamics that make stories meaningful, memorable, and always changing. Of particular interest to me were those chapters that examine the ways we use stories to help us negotiate reality - to decide when it's just to execute a life, when people permit lies through story, when people find beauty and fulfillment.

This isn't an academic work; it is consummately accessible, and both entertaining and thought-provoking. Unlike other favorites, like Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling, which focus on the personal cognitive functions of narrative, The Story is True centers on the social and situated roles of story-telling and story-believing. Much of it comes down to what is described in the books' chapter 14 preamble quote, by Walter Benjamin: "The Storyteller takes what he tells from experience–his own or that reported by others. And he in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to his tale."

[Magen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is absolutely one of my favorite books on narrative because of its accessibility, and I recommend it to everyone. It was time for a reread as I prepare for a lecture on folk narrative and oral history. Grad school was tough, and my thesis was no walk in the park, but I'm forever grateful to my chair for recommending this book.

[Roxy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jackson makes great points about the nature of storytelling and why we, in general, tell stories. My only serious issue is that sometimes he went overboard with his exposition, although I'm not entirely sure if that wasn't intentional. Still, it brought the book down for me.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Changed the way I perceive reality because everything we do we construe in a manner that fits a narrative.