It’s Not “Just Fiction”

Over the weekend, we were talking about books. Youngest son, myself and Wizard were talking about some non-fiction we were all reading and talking about loaning one another, mostly biographies of successful business types. And my daughter-in-law said, “I’ve just been reading fiction.”

I stopped her immediately. “Fiction is important and teaches us a lot. It is not “just fiction.'” And she agreed, because she’s smart and all the things I could hope for in my son’s life partner

Quick story here: Just weeks before my 14th birthday, my dad suddenly died, we moved states, lived with my sister, I started high school where I knew no one, and I was very lost. But I found fiction. In that fiction, I came to believe there was a future for me out there, I just had to work for it. Become the person who would earn and deserve that future. In short, novels saved me. They gave me a safe place to go when I was drowning in the world.

Fiction taught me to value myself and choose a good life partner who would value me too.

Fiction taught me to value that life partner, no matter how hard life gets.

Fiction also taught me that Happily Ever After is fiction, but character, patience and determination will take you through in the real world.

Historical Fiction brought history to life and taught me the human toll of tragedy as well as that the human spirit that can triumph.

I believe Fiction teaches us both the value and the costs of choices we make, so that maybe we can make better choices, or at least, have a better understanding of the cost of the choices we do make.

I believe Fiction has so much to teach me, and to teach all of us.

It’s not “just fiction.”

What do you think?

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