Although nonfictional writing provides critical insights into history in ways that fictional writing never could, it is very often relegated to a “second-class citizen” status in the realm of literary criticism and appreciation. Literacy tradition has created a hard line between literature, specifically novels and short stories and poetry, which we regard as created fictions and nonliterary test – journalism, biography, history, essays, and so on- which we think of as records of actuality. This distinction is what prevents us from applying to nonfiction the analytical tools we use to uncover the secrets of literary art. (McCord 748
