Narrative History and Speculative Peep Shows

I find, from time to time, that it's difficult to explain to people exactly what it is I write. "It's history," I say, "but it's not a textbook. It's going to read like a novel."

"Oh, so you mean a historical fiction?" I'm asked.

"No, it's all true, all nonfiction. It's more like a historical narrative, I guess."

"Oh," is the usual response I get, usually accompanied with a quizzical expression of someone who doesn't get it but would rather talk about something else.

I really don't know what to call the genre. The closest I've found is Narrative History which is taking history and telling it in story form. This genre allows for more speculation, more dramatic elements and, for the reader, a more exciting and engaging bit of history. The problem I face, though, is how much license can I take and still have it counted as a history book?

Passages like this easily count as history:

Other oddities in Portsmouth Square captured her attention. Everywhere, it seemed, men were setting up shops with first rate entrepreneurial spirits. Upstart businessmen sold “knives, trinkets and clothing, with their arms filled with their different wares,” wrote Isaac Baker in his journal. He was much amused with an old covered wagon selling coffee and cakes and, next door, a ten-foot-square canvas tent styled as a saloon. “In front of” the saloon’s owner “was his chest, answering for a table, on which were a set of knives and forks and cups and saucers, a few loaves, pies cakes and buns, and alongside a tea kettle of hot coffee sizzling over an iron furnace.” When a few customers came by, “Jack politely introduced them into his saloon, and as they sat on his beds (a heap of straw), served them with the ‘fixins’ with the grace and skill of an accomplished waiter!” It was as if these men had lost sight of the fact that they were doing perfectly respectable business in the middle of a field of dirt, surrounded by a roiling stew of culture, commerce and chaos.

But what about a passage like this?

Ah Toy then appeared. She was in her best dress that she had received from the captain, a silk robe that draped around her shoulders and covered up her neck. Down her legs, however, were two slits up each side that allowed bare skin to peek out. She slowly stepped out from behind the wall and made her way up to her man, moving her hips all the while and allowing a bit of leg to show. The men stared. Then, right in front of them, she bent over with great care and whispered into her man’s ear, Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come. He nodded. Straightening back up, she slowly, step by step, made her way back to the wall, but for a quick second she stopped, looked directly at the men, smiled demurely, cast her eyes down, and disappeared. The next sound she heard was of gold clinking on the scales.

I have no proof that Ah Toy said and did these things; I just know that she set up a peep show and somehow had customers. As a reader, I'd like to know if she struggled to attract customers or whether they were knocking down her door. Knowing nothing about the book publishing business, I do wonder how much speculation is allowed in the History genre before some publishing big-wig decides that it's a better fit in the Fiction aisle.

I guess the bigger question is, so what? Maybe it doesn't matter what part of the bookstore it's in as long as it's in a bookstore at all!