I hope this can make sense. I am looking for a fictional book that describes real-world phenomena, and includes footnotes to those events. For example, when reading the book Chain-Gang All Stars, the book periodically cites real-world phenomena. With one character, Walter, who was imprisoned falsely, Adjei-Brenyah drops a footnote to explain that Walter is neither an extreme outlier nor an everyman; an estimated 2.3% to 5% of people in prison today are factually innocent (p. 262). In True Biz by Sara Novic, the book shares statistics about how it is ineffective to teach deaf children to read lips because without giving children access to a way to express themselves, they have serious cognitive decline.
Is there a genre of book that's almost a fictional non-fiction, where the narrative is fake, but the book has footnotes to real-world evidence? I am trying to use it as a gateway to actually reading nonfiction.
by Hollyshouse