January 7, 2010

Magazine writers who compose extended nonfiction narratives about human beings devoted to extreme activity are not exactly rare. But such writers who compose memorable narratives are rare indeed. That is why I felt a positive tinge of anticipation when I learned that publisher Simon & Schuster had decided to offer “American Voyeur: Dispatches From the Far Reaches of Modern Life” ($15.00), a collection of 16 magazine pieces by Benoit Denizet-Lewis between covers, bolstered by an introduction he wrote to explain his choice of subjects.

In a society where it is increasingly difficult for non-experts to distinguish between truth and fiction, a respected author has just added to the problem—but in a good way. The author of “The Autobiography of Fidel Castro” (Norton, $27.95) is Norberto Fuentes. The book purports to be written by Fidel Castro, a former fellow revolutionary of Fuentes’. The apparent assault on truth through fiction is not actually a problem, because the book is well advertised as a novel.