Nonfictionality, Function, and Salience

Focusing on different treatments of the same nonfictional entity, Huntington’s disease, in two global fictions, Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2005) and Lisa Genova’s Inside O’Briens (2015), this paper seeks to understand affective, ethical, aesthetic dimensions crucial problematic moments each. It deploys concepts status (fictional, nonfictional, or a blurring two), function (how does particular element contribute larger narrative purpose) salience significant is that for order unpack rhetorical logic those passages. This unpacking leads more positive view construction than one offered by many previous critics as well general defense O’Briens. More generally, essay offers new insights into interaction local nonfiction fiction.