The Treacherous Imagination

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Many authors have been accused of betraying their loved ones by turning them into fictional characters. In "The Treacherous Imagination, " Robert McGill examines the ethics of writing such stories. He argues that while fiction has long appealed to readers with its narratives of private life, contemporary autobiographical fiction channels a widespread ambivalence about the value of telling all in a confessional age--an age in which fiction has an unprecedented power to leave people feeling libeled or exposed when they recognize themselves in it