Challenges of writing a historical roman à clef

Note: I started this post on July 17 and now it's October 6 (!). In the time between these two dates, we closed on our house, moved into/camped out in our house, registered the car and got our new ids, unpacked our belongings when they were finally delivered (that's a story in itself) and made good progress on settling in. The washer and dryer weren't delivered until August 30, so I was also making weekly trips to a laundromat. We joined the local senior center, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, and the Museum Foundation of New Mexico and signed up for classes with Oasis. Still, I find it hard to believe that nearly two months have passed! 

A historical roman a clef is a specific type of historical fiction which is based on real events and real people. It's fiction, not non-fiction, so names of people and places are usually changed, events are modified, minor characters are composites of several real people. It presents special difficulties above and beyond those of historical fiction in general. One of my history professors said that he always cringed inside when a student wanted to write a history of a hometown, because it is so difficult to be objective. Beyond seeing things through a personal emotional lens (for good or bad), it's hard to decide what is really essential and what is irrelevant. What are the essential traits of the major characters and what traits can be dispensed with? Which details about places and events are significant and which ones just bog down the narrative? It's also difficult to simplify relationships and reduce the number of characters and events.

Another challenge that is unique to a historical roman a clef is facing the reality that the story you were told is not what really happened. That, in fact, sometimes it would have been nearly impossible for history to have played out that way. People are not lying (or usually not). Memories are faulty. They play tricks on us. If you don't believe me, ask your siblings about some event in the past at the next family gathering. Or maybe don't, as arguments will ensue. And, yes, sometimes they are deliberately lying to protect themselves or others. It's also the case that they've told the same lie/story for so long that they've come to believe that it is the truth. You'll be challenging people's memories and versions of the story, so be prepared! Presenting evidence is necessary, but it is not sufficient. You're rewriting their own memory of themselves. Be ready to say, "I know ... I had to do it for the story." 

If you're going to write a historical roman a clef, it's vital that you do your historical research in order to be able to identify the erroneous memories and sort out the confused timelines to the degree possible. You need to make sure that the contextual details are correct -- home appliances, tv shows, car models, clothing and hair styles, ethnic restaurants -- as well as the major details and events. Was it legal to do that at that time? Was it socially acceptable? Could the people in the story have afforded to purchase that item, go on that vacation, etc.? 

A couple of personal examples. When I was 3, we moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Puerto Rico. We gave the parakeet to the people who lived in the trailer next door. My memory is of walking next to my mother, carrying the bird cage and feeling very grown-up. According to my mother, I carried the box of bird seed. She carried the cage. How deflating! Obviously, I remembered it the way that I wanted to remember it. 

Another -- when researching the history of the establishment of a public library for my dissertation, I found an article in the local paper written about 50 years after the time period. The author claimed that the local opera company of the time performed an oratorio and raised hundreds of dollars for the library. The problem was (and is) that there is absolutely no contemporary report of that oratorio. I scoured each issue of the local paper during the time in question and the oratorio was never mentioned. The opera company was, but not the oratorio. Another problem was that there was no report of the funds raised for the library by that oratorio, and the newspaper reported on every single fundraising event and gave the amount that was raised, which was generally in the range of $50 or so. If hundreds of dollars had been raised, it certainly would have been reported. Long story short, it eventually became clear that the writer of the article, who was about 13 at the time the library was being built, had conflated several different events. There is a report of a local performance based on "The Virginian" which featured "real cow boys and real cow boy songs," but no oratorio. It raised about $47 for the library, not hundreds. 

The amount supposedly raised is very close to the sum total of all fund raising events reported in the paper. There are photographs of townspeople in costume for the supposed performance in the local history collection, but half of the characters are not characters in that oratorio. I did find a report of a fund raising concert given by a local man who had been accepted at Julliard to raise funds for his tuition. Later, it was reported that he would not be able to attend that year and he had donated what was raised to the library. (For those who are curious, he was Thomas Edward Birchell. He did ultimately attend Julliard and had a long and successful career as professional singer. He was known as "The Cowboy Baritone." https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91303758/thomas-edward-birchell). Have I identified the source of those photographs and of the legend? 

The local history magazine refuses to publish my article. It challenges the city's view of itself as highly cultured from an earlier period. As Maxwell Scott says in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."