Writers of nonfiction narratives learn to pick their subjects with care, because some true stories are much, much more interesting than others.

As a result, it reads less like a nonfiction narrative than a collection of short stories that tumble into each other.

Mayhew's greatest talents, say authors, agents and editors who have worked with her, lie in conceptualizing and structuring the nonfiction narrative.

This is a lot for a nonfiction narrative to juggle, and this book sometimes strains under the burden of so much grim, frustrating data.

On my bedside table sit four fine contemporary books: a poetry collection, a nonfiction narrative about the fall of the World Trade Center towers and two novels.

And each of them found an exciting, idiosyncratic way to reinvent the nonfiction narrative.

Dillard considers the story a "single sustained nonfiction narrative", although several chapters have been anthologized separately in magazines and other publications.

"As a writer, he is one of the best of the past 25 years in nonfiction narrative."

Resolutely unacademic, these briskly written nonfiction narratives borrow fiction's strategies to animate their heroes and central concerns.

To write a seamless nonfiction narrative, however, a perfect storm is desirable.