Narrative Historiography
Early on in the book, the narrator likens the idea of trying to fill in the gaps of lesser known history through novelistic approach to being turkey hash masquerading as Chateaubriand. From that point on, the book becomes a tale of the narrator attempting to do that very thing: approaching historical documentation as narrative. By the end of the story, the skeptical narrator succeeded in converging the separate worlds of historical documentation and storytelling into one holistic discipline. The seemingly separate realms of the dry historian and the imaginative storytelling are blended together to the point of blurring distinctions. History is show to be an exercise in storytelling existing at different points along the same spectrum rather occupying completely separate spectrums.
History, Storytelling and the Truth
Getting to heart of the truth of what happened during the “Incident” becomes an exercise in revealing the essential and fundamental myth widely accepted by the majority: history is inherently a more truthful account of past events than fictional accounts. In other words, a history book containing research, documentation and footnotes about a historical event like, say, the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral, will be instantly judged more factually accurate an alternative version of the same event that has been passed down through history as poems, songs, and oral legends. The narrator’s obsessive quest to understand what really happened in Chaneysville becomes a revelation that “history” and the “story” of what happened not necessarily the same thing, but also not necessarily completely different things and, furthermore, that the “history” is not necessarily the more truthful account.
A Black in White World
The narrative really follows three members of the Washington clan through life events taking place at various points in time chronologically, but simultaneously from a thematic perspective. Each of the three stories are radically different in events and operate under substantially different circumstances of society related to issues of racism, but each explores how the residue of the abominable inhumanity of slavery still makes post-Civil Rights Movement America a sticky place for African-Americans almost on a daily basis.
