"Fictual" Reportage and (Virtual) Reality: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song

This study discusses Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. using Jean Baudrillard's theory of the four stages of the image and John Hellmann's notion of the transforming power of consciousness. Examining two landmarks of what is widely referred to as the nonfiction novel, or creative nonfiction, the study suggests that any attempt to record reality ends up as fabulation, whereby the writer produces his/her own version of reality. Thus, we have multiple realities or, in other words, fables woven out of the interpretive consciousness of individual writers. Taking this a step further, since all our actions are attempts to act up to, or against, our characters, our whole life becomes simulation, a virtual reality show. In each of the books I discuss, characters reflect on the "unreality" of their actions. They feel as though they have been acting in a film. They also try to please either an audience or themselves. Thus, they become participants in a virtual reality show. The books, too, become shows since in order for us to know the end of the stories, the characters need to carry out their actions. The term fictional reportage is, therefore, suggested as a fit descriptor for a genre that attempts to recreate reality as accurately as possible and ends up as fabulation and simulation.