Humans have always told stories to each other — parables and fairytales as warnings disguised as amusement, juicy gossip as social news, fish stories as self aggrandizement. We love a good story, and we remember information better if it is wrapped up in an entertaining narrative. Our memories, the history of our lives and word are mostly made up of stories. True or false, a good story stays with us the way data and dry information don’t. We just haven’t evolved to ingest and remember statistics. Tell me again how giant that whale was, I love a good anecdote. But what happens when the stories that make up our lives are not true? Or not really true? The decisions, big and small, that we make as we live our lives are guided by the stories we remember most.

Writers always hide truth among fictional narratives. It’s what makes their stories so entertaining and readable. While not good at sorting out fact from fiction, people gravitate to things that ring true to them or that are so outrageously false that it’s just funny. But fiction is labeled as fiction. As I write my story about Baba Yaga, I can be certain that my future reads won’t mistake my tale for a historical account even as I embed a lot of real historical events into my story. But not all fiction is so clearly identifiable. Information age gave unprecedented access to all kinds of stories. And most of those are created by unreliable narrators — people who wittingly or unwittingly present stories that are simply false but have the talent to make them compelling. We live in a bizarre age when fantastical dissembling is routinely presented as truth. What’s more, the tricks that authors use as shortcuts to identify villains and good guys (villains kick dogs, good guys save cats) are now used to signal evil and virtue in news stories. It is left up to us as information consumers to figure out what is real and what is not. And it is a very hard skill to master.

We live with a three-year-old little girl, and she questions reality often. Our discussions go something like this: “Is she a real princess? Or a doll? Or is it imaginary?” Above is an illustration of princesses: one from a movie, a doll, an actress, and an illustration. But are any of those real? Sorting out real from make belief or toys is not as self-evident as it would seem. It’s a learned skill, and our grand daughter is working hard on mastering it. And when she is not sure, she always asks for clarification. It’s important to understand such distinctions.

As a writer of fiction, I totally get it. There is fantastical fiction, and then there is magical realism. They are very different things, and readers who love one genre might not appreciate the other or, at the very least, require a clarification. But at least librarians and book shops sort books by genre. Fake news is never classified as fake. Worse, there are battles fought over what is true and what is fake. This makes reality difficult to navigate for most people who might not be willing to invest enormous amounts of their time and energy on tracking down false narratives.

With everyone espousing their own reality, nothing becomes real. It’s all fiction. And that makes it difficult for all of us. It’s impossible to be an expert in everything. We have to trust some authority to tell us what is really true. I don’t want to have to become a medical expert, or a meteorologist, or an engine safety mechanic, or a food inspector just to navigate my way through an illness, or a hurricane, or a vacation, or a supermarket trip. I have enough on my plate as it is — life takes up a lot of time. There is just not enough of it do all these other things, too. That’s why we collectively outsourced those sort of things to experts. And we did so back in the early dawn of our civilization — not everyone was good at hunting or gathering or weaving or healing or building shelter. Thank goodness we figured it out…or have we? Why did questioning expertise of others become a fashionable thing? Do some people really have so much leisure time in their lives? Are they that bored? Read a book! I mean that literary — bored? Read something! Books are great! I wish I had more time to consume all the books I’ve been acquiring lately.

My grand daughter is working hard on sorting out reality. The books we read together and the stories I tell her will hopefully help with that. Life is a very nuanced affair. It is sometimes very difficult to figure out who are the bad actors and who are the good guys. More importantly, life comes in uncountable shades of gray. Is it better to believe that if something is good for me personally then it must be the “truth”? It is certainly one way of solving the problem…just not a good way. As a scientist, I believe in objective truth. Truth is not in the eye of the observer. And sometimes, something might not be the whole truth. And the whole truth might not even be knowable. But striving to acquire the skills necessary to identify a lie should not be just the pursuit of a three-year-old. We should all try. And again, fiction helps teach that skill by pointing out truths and lies in an easily absorbable way.

Happy reading!