Perhaps the most famous recent fictionalisation of a life is Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell but I’ve chosen some less well known examples for this post. Below are five novels based on real lives, all with links to reviews on this blog, beginning with one by a writer who excels at this form of fiction.
I’ve enjoyed most of the novels I’ve read by Jill Dawson but my favourite is The Crime Writer, a clever piece of literary fan fiction based on Patricia Highsmith’s sojourn at Bridge Cottage in Suffolk which constantly pulls the rug from under its readers’ feet. Highsmith is eager to be in easy reach of her lover, Sam, who lives in London with her brutish husband and their eight-year-old daughter. She struggles with the two books she’s writing – one a novel, the other about her craft – longing for Sam and painting her lover’s portrait to fill the void. One evening her yearnings are fulfilled and Sam arrives. Then things take a very dark turn, or do they? Dawson’s Highsmith is the quintessential unreliable narrator, an irascible woman in the grips of a paranoia aggravated by her alcoholism. It’s a very clever piece of writing, absolutely engrossing, and as Dawson tells us in her acknowledgements, her character’s eccentricities are entirely factual.
A fictionalisation of Jacqueline Kennedy might seem an uncharacteristic choice for me but I very much enjoyed Nicole Mary Kelby’s White Truffles in Winter 
based on the celebrated chef Escoffier’s life. Niftily avoiding the well-trodden Kennedy path, The Pink Suit tells the story of the titular outfit seen across the world on November 22nd, 1963, through Kate, a back-room girl at Chez Ninon. The Wife, as she’s known, has sketched a suit to be made in pink bouclé, a Chanel pattern which will have to be tailored under license from Coco herself. Kate, unsung yet supremely talented, is to make it. Through her, Kelby explores the world of high fashion, lightly weaving strands of social history through her novel. The political significance of the suit is cleverly portrayed, from the message it’s to convey on its first wearing to the nit-picking analysis with which it will be met by a media looking for any signs of excess or lack of patriotism, let alone style.
Amy Bloom chose another president’s wife on which to base White Houses, set almost two decades before The Pink Suit. Spanning a weekend in April 1945, shortly after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bloom’s novel tells the story of his wife Eleanor and Lorena Hickok, the woman who joined them in the White House with whom Eleanor had a long and passionate affair, and to whom she turns for solace, comfort and help with the sacks stuffed full of condolence letters. Bloom narrates this elegantly spare novella in Hick’s dry, earthy sometimes humorous voice, painting a picture of ‘30s and early ’40s America through the lens of her experience. It’s an extraordinarily intimate portrait, both of the two women and of Roosevelt’s presidency. I’ve yet to read anything by Bloom I’ve not loved. Her writing is both deft and empathetic.
Jami Attenberg’s Saint Mazie is based on Mazie Gordon, a woman I first came across in Joseph Mitchell’s collection of essays on New 
Yorkers, Up in the Old Hotel. Like many of Mitchell’s subjects Mazie’s story is a fascinating one – an ordinary working-class woman who did something extraordinary. Mazie came to live in the city aged ten, growing into a young woman eager for excitement. Her brother-in-law set her up with a job in his cinema’s ticket booth, safely tucked away from trouble. She’d always noticed the down-and-outs, moved to lend a hand when children were involved, but when the Depression bit, her nightly wanders gained more purpose, listening to the stories of men on the street as she handed out change and soap. Deeply compassionate yet clear-eyed and sharp, she saw no difference between many of these men and herself. Using Mazie’s diary as the novel’s backbone, Attenberg’s re-imagining brings her vividly to life.
Set in the mid-nineteenth century Carol Birch’s Orphans of the Carnival is based on the story of Julia Pastrana, a heavily hirsute Mexican woman, eager to see the world and willing to pay the price. Julia tucks away the card a visiting impresario hands her, knowing that it’s her passport into the world outside the small town she’s never left. Heavily veiled, she takes the long and arduous journey to New Orleans where Rates can hardly believe his luck when she arrives. She makes her debut topping the bill to an ecstatic audience, beginning a career in which she travels the world without seeing it, lonely and hoping for love, sometimes reunited with her few friends. Birch spins her story well, carefully avoiding the sentimental and always compassionate.
Any favourite reimagined lives you’d like to share?
If you’d like to explore more posts like this, I’ve listed them here.
I’m really keen to read White Houses.
Highly recommend it. So well done.
I like the look of all of these, but perhaps the Jill Dawson piques my interest the most. The ones that occur to me are Petina Gappah’s Out of the Darkness, Shining Light, about Livingstone’s journey across Africa. And Nicola Upson’s Stanley and Elsie, about Stanley Spencer’s life. And Annie Gathwaite’s Cecily – and The King’s Mother, which I just reviewed on 6 Degrees. I recommend heartily all of these. And I know there are more ..
Thanks so much for the recommendations. All three sound good but I’m particularly interested in Stanley and Elsie.
Oh do! I read it years ago – my first Upson. It really painted a great picture of the life, times and landscape.
He’s a fascinating artist.
I think so too. And an interesting man too.
I’m always a bit hesitant with fictionalised real people, but these all sound so well done. White Houses is especially appealing.
Best in the hands of a writer who doesn’t play too fast and loose with the facts for me. Bloom is a brilliant writer. I think you’d like it, and it’s a novella!
Somehow haven’t read any of these, but The Crime Writer and White Houses both struck me as interesting upon their release and I’d definitely read either if they came my way!
Both well worth looking out for. The Crime Writer is such smart piece of fan fiction.
Attenburgs book appeals to me. I have read quite a few fictionalized accounts of real people, some of them superb. Including the Marilyn Monroe story in Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Mann story in The Magic Mountain by Colm Tobin, story of Shakespeares son Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. It now seems to be a thriving genre, which I imagine requires a lot of research. Getting the interiority of the subject on the page is challenging I would think.
I wonder if Hilary Mantel started a trend. Many thanks for the recommendations. I remember working my way through Blonde years ago!
This is one of my favourite genres and I have now put all these on my wishlist!
Oh, that’s great news, Cathy! Hope you enjoy them.
This is a fabulous them/post Susan. I must keep note and add to the list!
Thanks, Mairéad. Delighted to hear that!
The Crime Writer, The Pink Suit and White Houses all sound brilliant and are now on my list, what a great post!
Thanks, Jane. That’s lovely to hear. I hope you enjoy them all.
A couple I’ve thought of… The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry (Thomas Hardy & his wife Emma) and The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph.
Thank you, Cathy! I thought you’d have something interesting suggestions to make given your reading.
Wow, I’ve read all of these! Some of my favourites are Winter by Christopher Nicholson (Thomas Hardy), Adeline by Norah Vincent (Virginia Woolf), and Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman (various; each short story has a different subject). I remember The Master by Colm Tóibín (Henry James) being excellent, but it’s been so long that I should probably reread it. Recently, I really enjoyed The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (W. Somerset Maugham).
Brilliant list! Thanks, Rebecca. It does seem to be a popular subject for fiction.
I’ve only read the first of these, but several of the others have caught my eye as well.
I so enjoyed the Dawson. The Bloom’s a particular favourite too.
Oh my gosh! You’ve reminded me that I already have The Crime Writer on my TBR shelf; it’s tucked behind the edge of the corner of the 2nd bookcase from the right. The Pink suit also sounds fascinating. Thanks for all these suggestions.
You’re welcome! I hope you get to The Crime Writer soon.
I like the sound of The Crime Writer. (I’m a Highsmith fan.) I know several women who knew her in her early NY days and it will be interesting to make comparisons between their stories and this.
That’s fascinating! I’d love it if you’d report back if you do read it.
Love this post! I’m very fond of a fictionalised life, and have read both Saint Mazie and The Crime Writer and thoroughly enjoyed both. I’ve got The Pink Suit and White Houses to read and I feel sure there are several others that I’ve read whose titles escape me now. Oh, Christine Dwyer Hickey’s The Narrow Land (which I know you know), The Hours by Michael Cunningham, Clara by Janice Galloway, Jo Baker’s A Country Road, A Tree, Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace. And I have several others to read – Alice Hoffman, The Marriage of Opposites, Being Here; The life of Paula Modersohn-Becker by Marie Darrieussecq, and I’m also interested in Karen Powell’s Fifteen Wild Decembers. Finally, I’m really enjoying Nicola Upson’s crime fiction series featuring Josephine Tey and a host of other celebs from the 1930s – Hitchcock, Wallis Simpson, M. R. James and others.
What a brilliant list! Thanks so much, Victoria, and for reminding me of Alias Grace.
I didn’t know the story behind that Attenberg novel but I’ve seen it around a few times (and really liked another of hers, and more recently enjoyed her 1000 Words). The one that jumps to my mind is Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife, about Laura Bush, really because I was sure that I wouldn’t enjoy it but I found it nearly unputdownable. But I’ve got a little shelf of them on GoodReads (and really must get all those books moved to LibraryThing).
Thanks for reminding me of American Wife, Marcie. A brilliant holiday read for me years ago. Mitchell’s Up at the Old Hotel is a wonderful set of essays to dip into, packed with stories about people like Mazie.
An intriguing list, all of which are very tempting though if I had to pick, I might veer more towards the first three. My review for tomorrow is interestingly also a fictionalisation of a real life!
I’ll look out for that, Mallika. It’s an interesting way of portraying a life.