Five Nonfiction Books That Read Like Fiction

"This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Nonfiction books sometimes get a reputation for being hard to slog through. But the qualities that make good novels so enjoyable-the well-paced plot, the engaging characters-can also be found in many of their fact-based counterparts. The Atlantic 's writers and editors answer the question: What is a nonfiction book that reads like fiction?"

"Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood This memoir is a trip. A broke 30-something poet, Lockwood returns to Kansas City with her husband to live in her parents' rectory (her father, a former Lutheran minister, sought permission from the Vatican to keep his wife and kids when he converted to Catholicism). He's the sort of priest who plays frenzied electric guitar, eats homemade pickles by the handful, and cleans his guns in front of people he doesn't like. "There's no in-between with him, is there," Lockwood's husband observes. "He's either buck nude or he's in a little outfit.""

"Lockwood's life, and lens, is so absurd that it's hard to believe any of it is real. As she reflects on a childhood spent attending pro-life protests and parishes across the Midwest, the sorts of sly, surreal observations that made her Twitter-famous are streaked with darker ones about organized religion, class, and gender. In our very-online world, where people sound more and more like one another, it's refreshing to read someone who sounds only like herself."

Nonfiction can feel more accessible and pleasurable when it adopts novelistic elements such as well-paced plotting, vivid characterization, and a distinctive voice. A memoir recounts a broke thirty-something poet returning to her parents' rectory in Kansas City, portraying a father who converted religions, plays frenzied electric guitar, eats pickles by the handful, and cleans guns in public. That memoir mixes sly, surreal humor with darker reflections on organized religion, class, and gender. Other recommended nonfiction accounts reconstruct horrifying mass violence, conveying heartbreaking detail while maintaining narrative immediacy and emotional complexity.

Read at The Atlantic