"Opportunistic Transpositions and Elisions": Roger McDonald's "The Ballad of Desmond Kale"; or, The Fiction Question: Who Owns Stories?

Inga Clendinnen, a renowned historian, is attacking opportunistic transpositions and elisions of historical fiction generally but exempted Roger McDonald's historical novel, The Ballad of Desmond Kale, from her arguments. Bode examines Clendinnen's essay, The History Question, and MacDonald's novel. She points out that Clendinnen's position asserts history's boundaries by denying literary critics disciplinary expertise, or even a voice, in the debate about the relationship between fiction and history.