On the eve of President John F. Kennedy's final trip to Dallas, an irreverent narrator from the Ether begins to reveal the hidden chain of events that history never recorded. Spanning decades and weaving together Hollywood legends, political dynasties, secret affairs, and forgotten tragedies, Coincidence imagines how seemingly unrelated lives become entangled in the most infamous assassination of the twentieth century. From Joseph P. Kennedy and Gloria Swanson to Jackie Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and the young Lee Harvey Oswald, every choice, passion, and betrayal sends ripples through time. Behind every headline lies another story, and every story hides a secret long buried. As the strands converge on November 22, 1963, the line between fate and accident begins to blur. Rich in historical detail and provocative speculation, Coincidence asks: was it really coincidence at all?
AUTHOR GUEST POST:
Jon: My newest novel, "Coincidence" is intended to be a historiographic meta fiction tale centered around the John Kennedy assassination. In other words, my fictional characters weave in and out of the actual historical events, interplaying with real folks but the basic historical arc is not changed. My rough model was "Ragtime" but the genre itself has been around in modern fiction for a while. "Catch 22," many of Kurt Vonnegut's novels, and Gore Vidal's are similar. I use an all-knowing narrator to speak directly to the reader to add context and shape to my re-telling of the days and years of events leading up to JFK's last bad day in Dallas.
Google describes historiographic metafiction as a postmodern literary genre that blends historical fiction with self-conscious storytelling. The text explores how history is recorded, edited and shaped by power rather than presented as absolute truth. The text exposes its own artificial creation, breaking the traditional illusion of historical realism.
Obviously, the biggest pro to writing in this genre is that the principal undercarriage of the story is already written...in the history books. The major characters are already out there...their appearances, voices, foibles, sins and heroics already known, probably well-known. The challenge then is to weave fictional characters and events into the narrative that are plausible and fresh. This can be great fun. Adding the metafiction element...say with a narrator or character speaking directly to the reader (Think "Deadpool") allows the introduction of humor, irony and snarky commentary. To me, this allows the actual historical characters to become more human and entertaining as the familiar historical understanding unspools. The real folks were blood and bone humans and the metafiction approach, i think, allows their genuine selves to be projected more entertainingly than might be available through classic historical fiction.
The major con of this genre, like that of historical fiction, is that the readers may have a fixed notion about the historical characters and events and could fail to appreciate a tweaking of their notions. Myths and prejudices get hard-wired into readers about non-fictional people, and a writer runs the risk of alienating potential audiences by piercing the bubbles time has built around these historical players. Adding the asides and possible snark takes of the metafiction element can exacerbate the reader's alienation. On the other hand, many readers find historical fiction dry and not fun because the end of the story is known...putting a smartass in the middle of the telling might jack up the interest of a reader not otherwise interested in reading about something already known, and, like I said, probably well-known. The JFK tale is certainly very well-known, its major and minor characters exposed in hundreds of books and other writings. Hopefully, my take on the tale will prove refreshing to readers open to having some fun with what was a jarring historical event.
