Marie Noonan, author of A Widow’s Son, on the ‘truth contract’ writers make with their readers . . .
I didn’t think my novel would be so difficult to write. After all, I already had the foundation of the story in the true events. A Widow’s Son is closely based on a tragedy that occurred in my hometown of Dromcollogher, Co Limerick, a century ago when forty-eight local people died in a cinema fire. Although I grew up in the small town where evidence of the disaster was everywhere, from the mass grave in the churchyard to the memorial library built on the site of the disaster, no-one spoke about it when I was a child. The victims were just names etched on the large Celtic cross in the churchyard. I realise now that without professional counselling and grief therapy, survival meant remembering to forget.
My first task was research, not just to find out more about the people involved but also about life in 1926. Ireland was a fledgling state then, grappling with the mechanics of independence in the aftermath of a bloody civil war. I searched newspapers, historical articles, the National Archives, and census records. Babe Forde, a young, illegitimate and disabled man, organised the makeshift cinema. I became fascinated by this person who dared to dream big, who wanted to make a name for himself despite his disadvantages. But research can be a quagmire and a way of postponing writing. The more I attempted to free myself, the more the research sucked me in and kept me enthralled.
The Truth Contract
I struggled to decide the genre of my book. I was in a grey no-man’s-land, uncomfortable with calling it fiction, but it wasn’t strictly fact either. A friend suggested it was ‘narrative non-fiction,’ a term I was unfamiliar with. I discovered that in narrative nonfiction, everything must be factually accurate and verifiable, using literary techniques only to tell a true story. In historical fiction, the writer uses imagination to fill in the blanks of history, creating characters, dialogue, or events that never actually happened. The core difference lies in the ‘truth contract’ with the reader.
Using these definitions, my work was firmly in the historical fiction category. I had shifted timelines slightly and invented a couple of minor characters, mainly to voice the forbidden doubts and fears that real people in 1926 were too polite or traumatized to say out loud. I felt an enormous moral pressure not to sensationalise the events or to disrespect the dead. Although no direct family member of mine was involved in the fire, I grew up with the relatives of many who were. I was writing about my people.
That daunting challenge of balancing emotional truth with factual respect blocked my creativity for a long time. What right did I have to invent character traits for real people, develop relationships that may not have existed, and put imaginary words in their mouths? The phrase ‘hobbled by the truth’ perfectly captured my creative paralysis; the weight of research and truth felt like a cage rather than a foundation.
Why Write?
I asked myself why I was writing this book at all if it was sapping my energy and stifling my creativity in an ethical agony. Wouldn’t it be easier to turn my attention to something else? Although I was stagnating and procrastinating, I couldn’t abandon the project either. The impetus to write it came from a desire to shine a light on this almost-forgotten tragedy in my hometown, always known locally as The Burning. Perhaps I felt compelled to write the story because I lived in the house from which an entire family left on that fateful night for a night’s entertainment at a picture show, their breakfast table set for a meal they would never eat.
Writers Ink
I joined the wonderful online Writers Ink, and the discipline of uploading five hundred words every Thursday propelled me forward. The critique I received was very constructive, but importantly for me, comments often mentioned the emotional, but sensitive, way the story was unfolding. I realised that my job as a novelist was not to create a chronological ledger of the 1926 fire (although I mostly did that) but to make the reader empathise with both the victims and the survivors, to feel the heat, the panic and the devastating grief of the aftermath.
Overcoming the Truth Trap
I found it helpful to think of the historical record as the load-bearing walls of a house. I couldn’t move the date of the fire, the location, the body count, or the overarching cause. But everything inside those walls—the whispers in the dark, the exact words spoken as someone reached for a hand in the smoke, the private tears of a mother the next morning—was mine to furnish with my imagination. I was keeping the architecture but changing the furniture.
I wrote A Widow’s Son using real names, but before it was published, I changed the names for two reasons. The first was to emphasise that although this was based on true events and real people, it was a work of fiction.. The second was that the Commemoration Committee in Dromcollogher also published a hardback factual book last month, The Burning, Dromcollogher Remembers. As well as local history, poignant photos, and extensive research, it dedicated individual pages to each of the victims in a fitting memorial.
After much soul-searching, I overcame the ‘truth trap’ to write a novel which captures the human story behind the calamity in a sensitive and readable way. Some of my readers have said that it is unputdownable, which makes it all worthwhile, but next time, I think I will stick to complete fiction.
(c) Marie Noonan
About A Widow’s Son by Marie Noonan:
One man’s dream leads to a devastating tragedy.
Journey back to 1926 to a small town in rural Ireland, where Babe O’Connor is a man with a plan. Despite his illegitimate birth and physical deformity, he is determined to make a name for himself. As a hot, dry summer grips the town, Babe sees an opportunity to make some money by organising a picture show in a timber loft on a Sunday night in early September. His plans are met with resistance from the local priest and sergeant. Undeterred, Babe convinces the townspeople to attend the show, ignoring the warnings from authority figures.
Little do they know that their decision to climb the rickety ladder into the loft will lead to a heartbreaking calamity. As the town reels in the aftermath, tensions rise and anger boils over. Babe must face the consequences of his actions and the weight of his guilt.
Don’t miss this emotionally gripping and atmospheric novel. The narrative captures the devastating weight of a small-town disaster, the local guilt, and the psychological aftermath of the tragedy.
Order your copy online here.
And read more from Marie Noonan on Writing.ie here.
