Orringer elaborated on this marriage of history and fiction by discussing the ways in which other authors took liberties in writing novels about characters and events that were rooted in reality.
She discussed Jeffrey K. Eugenides’ novel “Middlesex,” which placed a hermaphroditic protagonist in the city and setting that the author grew up in, and Philip M. Roth’s novel “The Plot Against America,” which described an alternative history in which aviator Charles Lindbergh won the 1940 presidential election. Orringer posited that both novels arrived at “deeper truths” by blending history and reality with creative departure.
The lecture was part of the annual Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in the Arts and Humanities lecture series to honor Julia S. Phelps, an instructor at Radcliffe who died in 2002.