When we were working on his book more than 15 years ago, Vic Fischer told me some stories that he asked me to keep confidential until everyone involved had died.
As a collaborative writer, I’ve been the surrogate memory for half a dozen people who told me things they didn’t want anyone else to know. As time has passed and some have gone, I’ve felt that responsibility deepen.
After Vic died at 99, two years ago this month, I was free to repeat his secrets. But I’m not going to.
Vic was among the most important figures in the history of Alaska. He knew the transcripts of our 130 interviews would become public in university archives, along with the rest of his papers gathered over an extraordinary century of life.
Beyond Alaska, he had been part of the twentieth century’s biggest events. He escaped Hitler and met Stalin and FDR. He fought for the U.S. in World War II while his two best friends fought for the Soviet Union and Germany. Another childhood friend become head of the East German Stasi. He helped open Russia under Yeltsin and turned down a governorship in the Russian Far East.
We worked on his memoirs for several years. Part of the job, with every client, is to download a life in recorded interviews. These conversations are confidential—permanently so, except for those parts that the client decides to release or include in the book.
By the time we were done talking, Vic joked that I knew his stories better than he did. As he aged—although he remained alert until near the end—the joke became a reality, for there are only so many memories that an old mind can hold.
Ultimately, Vic told me his stories were mine to do with as I thought best. We had developed a profound friendship and I was honored by his trust.
Why tell a collaborator secrets you don’t want to appear in the book? One reason is that you cannot decide what to include until the book comes into focus. Another is that your writer needs to know the whole story—to understand the entirety of you—in order to faithfully recreate your life in words.
And this explains why I’ve decided to hold onto those private transcripts of Vic’s for a bit longer.
I don’t think there’s any shame in those stories, which occurred in the 1950s and relate only to people who have been gone for some time. But surfacing this material out of context would not improve understanding.
I understood and loved Vic as the totality of himself. That’s where the truth lies. His whole life—in the book, his reputation, and among his friends—contains a more substantial reality than these disconnected details.
Perhaps I’ll eventually write something that puts these other stories into that context. Or I may let the transcripts be quietly added to Vic’s vast university archives without mentioning it to anyone.
Like Vic, I’ll eventually have to trust future historians to carry on the responsibility I currently hold in my own ephemeral brain.
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