What is literary nonfiction and how does it function separately from its predecessors?
According to Michael Pearson, “until recently the genre of literary nonfiction went undefined” (29). This type of writing has been evolving for quite some time; we see traces of it in memoir and autobiography. But it wasn’t until the 1965 publication of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood that the form took root and began to attract great numbers of writers, readers, critics, and scholars. Since then, it has become increasingly popular with the American reading public because its “timeliness [gives] the form a special edge, a way of confronting a rapidly changing and confusing reality” (Pearson 27). The modern audience seems to be intrigued with its literary approach to controversial political, social, and cultural issues that are often subjective and ambiguous.
