fuonlyknew

Let’s talk about Frances.

Francis is one of the two main characters in my new novel, The Antique Picker’s Daughter, the other being Frankie, the daughter of the title. In some respects, Francis is a con man, a liar, a thief. You might assume he’s a bad guy. But he’s also smart, charming, and kind to those weaker than him. Which means he may be a good guy.

But what he seems to be, to me, isn’t your classic good guy or bad guy — what he puts me most in mind of is a writer.

Writers are storytellers, and so is Francis. Francis is always telling tales; some are outright lies, although not always — the extent to which he massages the truth depends on the situation, depends on what he’s after. Writers of fiction are, on some level, liars. We are not telling the truth. Was there an Elizabeth who married a Darcy? Unlikely: in Jane Austen’s time, a woman of Elizabeth’s social class rarely met, let alone married, a man of Darcy’s social class. Is there a galaxy far, far away? Undoubtedly. Does Luke Skywalker live there and battle the Empire? Not as doubt-free.

So, what’s going on here? Why do people turn on a tablet, open a book, switch on the TV, or go to a cinema to read or watch stories they know aren’t true?

It has to do, I suspect, with how much reality humankind can bear. If a friend tells you, “My mother died and I am sad,” and you haven’t lost your mother, you might say, “Condolences,” or “I’m so sorry.” But you can’t share that experience; it may be difficult for you to imagine what it’s like, and imagining it might make you uncomfortable, you might shy away from thinking about it, and have little support to give your friend in a tough time.

However, if you haven’t lost your mother, but you read a book in which a character — a person the author has created and made engaging, understandable, relatable — loses their mother, and if the author skilfully takes you through that character’s experience so you almost feel you know what it might be like to lose your own mother, reading that novel might expand your empathy and compassion and you might be better able to help your friend. So, the writer has set up a not-true situation (this character does not really exist; this non-existent character did not lose their mother), but by getting you into the character’s head and taking you through an experience you have not had, the writer is telling lies in the service of truth.

Which is why, although Francis doesn’t always tell the unvarnished truth, I’m willing to listen to his yarns. A lot of times, there’s a germ of truth to them. And as Frankie says, “I don’t know if I believe him, but here’s the thing about Francis: it doesn’t matter if you believe him or not, the stories are always entertaining.”