While a biography is the story of a person's life from someone else's point of view, biographical fiction purports to take us into the mind of the subject and to view life from his or her point of view.
Such is the goal of author Brian Hall's new work, "Fall of Frost: A Novel" (Viking, 2008). In short, vivid vignettes, Hall takes us to key moments in Frost's life starting with 1962 when the 88-year-old poet traveled to Russia to implore Khrushchev to see the folly of the Cold War. Short chapters jump from early years to later ones, each a pithy illumination of a telling event in Frost's event-filled life.
It will never be known if the thoughts and words attributed to Frost in this fictionalized account were accurate, or even close, but Hall captures the feel of the moment as he focuses on various periods in Frost's life.
In one brief chapter, a young poet unexpectedly and excitedly encounters Frost on a train. They talk of poetry, and the young man, reassured that Frost is genuinely interested in their discourse, offers a remembered quote.
"Good poetry always tells the truth," he says.
Frost, always the teacher, counters with, "But it makes us fall back on the stock phrase, 'What is truth?' Take Keats' 'Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.' A fine phrase, as far as it goes. But we know well that truth is not always beautiful. Ugliness is truth. We must remember that."
The conversation continues, but a short while later the previously loquacious Frost grows silent and abruptly announces, "My son Carol died last night. He killed himself." The shocked young man recoils as Frost admonishes, "Please don't talk to me any more."
Hall has managed to capture Frost's prickly character through the imagined dialogue and situational tableaus created throughout this fictional biography format. The early publications, the years in England, the solitude of writing and the crush of adulation after success — all are woven into the narrative. Derry and environs are here, even a visit to the present-day farm by a character called "the Novelist." And snippets of Frost's writings — poetry, prose, recorded comments — season the text.
Frost's character and his poems were shaped by his hard life. His father died when Frost was a boy of 7; his only sibling, a sister, died in an insane asylum. Frost had six children, but one perished during childbirth, another before age 4; one committed suicide and another went insane. All the low points of his life (and there were many), and the high points, too, are in the novel, almost randomly jumping across decades and back again — short bits that piece together a life, kind of like short phrases that piece together the essence of a poem.
Jack Robillard is the assistant director at the Derry Public Library. The Derry Public Library is located at 64 E. Broadway. For more information on library events, call 432-6140 or visit the library's Web site at www.derry.lib.nh.us.
Other fictional biography titles based on well-know people
— "The Last King of Scotland" by Giles Foden; based on Idi Amin
— "The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austin" by Syrie James, "Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austin's Life" by Nancy Moser
— "The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn" by Robin Maxwell
— "Buddha: the story of enlightenment" by Deepak Chopra
— "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth; based on Charles Lindbergh
— "Nefertiti: A Novel" by Michelle Mora
— "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson; based on Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke
— "Any Human Heart" by William Boyd; based on Pablo Picasso, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Ernest Hemingway and Ian Fleming
— "Patriot Hearts: A Novel of the Founding Mothers" by Barbara Hambly; based on Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Sally Hemings and Dolley Madison
