Realism in fiction presents the reader with the unreality of fiction wrapped in an illusion of reality. Characters, plots, and settings are plausible, suggesting that they could actually exist in real life. In most cases, realist authors have derived their stories from actual experiences and issues, so the ring of truth permeates them. Realism enables the reader to engage fully in the story, because he perceives it as true. For the same reason, it facilitates his efforts to deal with real issues in his own life by providing a scenario in which he can explore his feelings, learn from the characters in the book, and ôtry outö options and solutions in his mind as the characters live them out.
The book Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks is an excellent example of a realistic story that the reader can engage in and learn from. When a schoolbus driver loses control of the bus on a treacherous highway, it plunges down a snowy embankment and through the ice, killing 19 of the townÆs children. The reader is plunged into the grief that the town must work through in order to heal from its loss, and through the narrative of four different characters that each tell the story from their unique point of view, the reader is drawn into the heart of the story. The four-perspective approach is a singular storytelling device and lends verisimilitude to the fiction, much the same as if the reader were sitting in a group discussion and hearing others bring different insights to the table.
The bus driver, Dolores bears the guilt and shame of having been a party to the accident. Nichole, the only other survivor of the crash, is a teen-aged girl who becomes wheelchair bound due to the accident. Billy Ansel is a Vietnam veteran(a widower(who is driving behind the school bus when it crashes, taking his nine-year-old twins(all the family he had left(to their death. Mitchell Stephens is the ambulance-chasing lawyer who arrives in to
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