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The Lifespan of a Fact

by John D'Agata, Jim Fingal (Goodreads Author)

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 463 ratings · 119 reviews

How negotiable is a fact in nonfiction? In 2003, an essay by John D'Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. That essay which eventually became the foundation of D'Agata's critically acclaimed About a Mountain was accepted by another magazine, The Believer, but not before they handed it to their own fact-checker, Jim Fingal. What

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Paperback, 128 pages

Published February 27th 2012 by W. W. Norton & Company

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Mar 22, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

Quick edit(3/22/12): In surveying some of the professional reviews out there (and on here), I've been surprised by one strand of criticism in particular, the heart of which seems to stem from this line on the back cover: "This book reproduces D’Agata’s essay, along with D’Agata and Fingal’s extensive correspondence." It has since emerged that the quotes we get from Fingal and D'Agata have been edited/selectively chosen/made up wholesale for the sake of this book/etc., thereby beefing up the inte...more

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Mar 10, 2012 David rated it 2 of 5 stars

As of the writing of this review, I am the only person to give The Lifespan of a Fact fewer than three stars. This, I think, is clearly a case of a book preaching to its choir. Those who choose to read a (windy) transcript of a dispute between an essayist (John D'Agata) and a fact-checker (Jim Fingal) on the struggle between fact and truth are perhaps predisposed to 'enjoy' it. It isn't a book likely to be discovered by an audience uninterested in its themes.

Accurately or not, I would tend to c...more As of the writing of this review, I am the only person to give The Lifespan of a Fact fewer than three stars. This, I think, is clearly a case of a book preaching to its choir. Those who choose to read a (windy) transcript of a dispute between an essayist (John D'Agata) and a fact-checker (Jim Fingal) on the struggle between fact and truth are perhaps predisposed to 'enjoy' it. It isn't a book likely to be discovered by an audience uninterested in its themes.

Accurately or not, I would tend to count myself as a constituent of this book's target audience. I am, after all, a writer (of sorts). I am often embarrassingly passionate about esoteric, philosophical topics. I'm intrigued by, if not entirely won over by the trickery of literary postmodernism. I am concerned, ambivalently, with pure aesthetics—that is, art divested of moral responsibility. And I am a nerd who enjoys eavesdropping on a hifalutin discourse.

But... The Lifespan of a Fact, overall, strikes me as a failure. First of all—and despite Maggie Nelson's back cover blurb—it is monotonous and not 'compulsively readable.' (If priggish fact-checker Jim Fingal were analyzing the phrase 'compulsively readable,' he would probably write two or more long paragraphs on the distinction between literal readability [i.e., being able to be read] versus the connotation of being enjoyable to read. He would ultimately give the phrase a pass, although he would be bothered by the figurative use of the adverb compulsively.)

What The Lifespan of a Fact is comprised of is the reprint of an essay by John D'Agata about suicide in Las Vegas accompanied by Fingal's scrupulous (and tedious) fact-checking notes—as well as D'Agata's snide responses to these notes. I am not faulting a fact-checker for being tedious. It's certainly his job, in a sense. But I am faulting the publishing powers-that-be for imagining this might be an interesting or enlightening read.

I would estimate that the detailing of factual quibbles make up 80% (or more) of the book. Only the remaining scraps of the book engage in spirited discourse about the goals and responsibility of essays/'non-fiction' (which is a contentious genre for D'Agata). Once the reader gets the feel for the pattern—Fingal increasingly nitpicks in retaliation to D'Agata's perceived ethical failures—it's just a matter of riding out the book, with its droning barrage of fact corrections.

D'Agata and Fingal, as represented in the book, are both extremely unlikeable. D'Agata is sniping and petulant. His grandiose formulas for the essay are as moralistic and childish as Fingal's needling scrutiny. Once Fingal realizes what he's dealing with, he spitefully extends his fact-checking authority to the sources cited by D'Agata. In other words, he not only checks to see whether people said what they were quoted as saying, but he also judges the truth-claims of their quotes. Clearly, he is a fact-checker run amok.

D'Agata's position that essayists are not beholden to facts and may change them liberally to arrive at 'truth' is nothing but postmodernist nonsense, in my opinion. The essay (as it exists today) is a culturally established exchange between writer and audience endowed with certain expectations. D'Agata's prickly response is essentially, if I may paraphrase, that the audience is wrong—or as he puts it 'ignorant.' I would question how the audience is expected to arrive at D'Agata's understanding of the rules of the essay if they aren't edified in some way—if there isn't some 'opening' onto this knowledge. Readers will leave the essay on Levi Presley's suicide believing that it is factually accurate. If they never come to understand the essay otherwise, how will they be enlightened and come to appreciate D'Agata's use of the genre? As Fingal, I think, correctly diagnoses, D'Agata is contemptuous of his readers—looking down on them from the rarefied temple of 'art.'

More to the point, perhaps, D'Agata's liberties do not make for a compelling essay! In the end, he falsified and distorted the facts to arrive at an entirely mundane 'truth.' If only his writing were as exalted as his theories...(less)

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Sajel I just want to counter a few of the points you've made (not that they're truly incorrect, because they're subjective) because honestly I'm saddened by...more
Jan 13, 2013 05:21pm

David I'm not offended at all, Sajel. I know this kind of book will appeal to a certain audience—but I am not it. Also, I think it's important to remember t...more
Jan 14, 2013 05:36am

Mar 06, 2012 Schuyler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow. Let's just start with that one word.

Moving on, this slim "book" is unlike anything you've ever read. It's a sort of companion piece to the astoundingly good About a Mountain (also by D'Agata). About a Mountain was originally an essay that was later fleshed out into a book. The Lifespan of a Fact is the story of that original essay but really it's about fact-checking, but no, it's really really about truth vs. accuracy, but seriously it's really really really about Art and Literature and th...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Emily Crowe rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is endlessly fascinating! Let me try to explain how and why this book got published. Almost 10 years ago, John D’Agata wrote an essay called “About a Mountain” that was rejected for publication from various periodicals due to factual inaccuracies. Enter Believer magazine, who was willing to run the piece with a certain number of inaccuracies, as long as they knew exactly what they were and wouldn’t be surprised by anything post-publication. Believer puts their staff fact checker named...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: author-get-over-thyself

I feel like I've been trolled. It worked.

This is an essay by John D'Agata about a teen suicide in Las Vegas. Some portion of the essay appears on the center of every page, surrounded by a tiny-type argument between D'Agata and a fact checker. So as you read the essay, you also read the fact checker pointing out its inaccuracies, and you read the author's responses, which basically amount to 'This is art so I don't have to care if it's not strictly true.'

D’Agata refuses to exchange incorrect fi...more I feel like I've been trolled. It worked.

This is an essay by John D'Agata about a teen suicide in Las Vegas. Some portion of the essay appears on the center of every page, surrounded by a tiny-type argument between D'Agata and a fact checker. So as you read the essay, you also read the fact checker pointing out its inaccuracies, and you read the author's responses, which basically amount to 'This is art so I don't have to care if it's not strictly true.'

D’Agata refuses to exchange incorrect figures and details for accurate ones, because he prefers the ‘rhythm’ of the bogus info. He embellishes or rewrites quotes and attributes quotes to made-up people. He invents things -- poetic graffiti, the method of another person’s suicide, folklore about the number nine -- blending these fabrications with the real in the service of his greater theme. The author argues (over and over again) that because the word 'essay' literally translates to 'attempt,' he can 'attempt' to make his points and it shouldn't matter what he bends or breaks to get there.

It does matter. It's hubris to assume that you know which part of your story will stick with a reader. In six months the only thing I retain from his essay could well be some of these faked details, which maybe meant something to me, and which I blithely believed were real. Also, if you're such a delicate flower that you can't make good writing out of the reality at hand, then switch fields. Or stick with very personal stuff. If he wants to make one of his 'attempts' about the time he had a really weird dream and then his mom made him a PB&J, he should go ahead. I don't care what flavor the jelly actually was. But when you're writing about the wider world we all live in, have a little respect: don't print shit you know is wrong just because it sounds prettier in your head or 'feels' right to you. He hides behind this idea of the essay as an art form in between, as a format where the end justifies the means. He's cheating. There are writers who can make it good without making it up, so what’s the point of John D’Agata?

I'm not saying the fact checker is not often too finicky, or too credulous about other sources, because he is, so much so that it sometimes feels like a device. I'm also not saying this was worth reading in the end, because I'm on the fence, despite the fact that the last four pages were extremely strong. There's probably an argument to be made that we should have a 'conversation' about accuracy in popular nonfiction, particularly when it comes to memoir, but before we begin to have that conversation I want everything this guy publishes to come with a warning label.
(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 Ezekiel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, fiction

Rather than try to encapsulate how I felt about this book, I am cutting/pasting the email I sent to my mother and aunt while at the very end of this book. Oh, I will say one thing else: I feel about this book the way some people feel about Twilight, a desire to pick it apart at the seams that does include humor and fun in the process, but that doesn't say "this is a good book." Because it isn't. Good god.

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I am currently in the mi...more Rather than try to encapsulate how I felt about this book, I am cutting/pasting the email I sent to my mother and aunt while at the very end of this book. Oh, I will say one thing else: I feel about this book the way some people feel about Twilight, a desire to pick it apart at the seams that does include humor and fun in the process, but that doesn't say "this is a good book." Because it isn't. Good god.

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I am currently in the middle of page 110 (of 123, and yes, at least partially because of reading this book I just double checked where exactly I am/ what is the number of the last paginated page). I thought prior to finishing/reading the article you included that I would give you an update on my feelings. I am now multiple pages into the philosophical discussion between Jim and John about the meaning of reality/art/nonfiction.

I have never been more sure in my life that I believe John to be a self-absorbed, pseudo-philosophical, navel-gazing, intellectually-masturbating, asshole.

Screw John (the author, not any of the other Johns in my life).

I literally cannot conceive of a single way that in the next 10+ pages I could become convinced that John is not a self-absorbed, full of himself, self-aggrandizing asshole who believes himself to be a super-special-snowflake of an "artiste". I feel 99.9998% certain that any further "twists" will simply help cement my feelings regarding this. As a [profession], reader, and writer I find him pompous and (frankly) dangerous (mostly the "dangerous" characterization is one that comes from my "[profession]" side, though I also note, as a writer,... that ACTUAL accuracy and specificity are important to me and have been for a long time as a writer). Also, as an ally to and member of various marginalized communities I think he plays with the type of "there is no reality but what we ascribe" bullshit that certain white men seem to REALLY get off on going into, expecting that their metaphysical struggles mean jack-shit to anyone who actually has to struggle for a positive cultural identity.

Seriously, Screw John D'Agata, AND his "streamlining" and "rhythm" and oh, goodness, I could go on for a while.

This book is quite good though. I'm enjoying it as intensely as it has kindled a burning dislike for the author in my heart. So thank you immensely for the loan.

(Don't worry, I don't think Jim's a peach altogether either).(less)

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Dec 27, 2012 Margaret Sankey rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating exercise in writing, facts and truth--the author, D'Agata, submitted an "essay", which the magazine's editor turned over to a staff fact-checker, Fingal. The book positions a block or article text in the center of the page, with Fingal's line-by-line checking around the outside. D'Agata's positioning of the work as an "essay" rather than non-fiction or journalism apparently absolves him of strict reliance on the truth, or taking notes with interviewees, or sticking to docum...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Stella rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book began well enough but quickly became increasingly frustrating to finish. I picked this up curious to delve into a grey area between fact and fiction but that never happened. From the first this disputed essay struck me as a piece of fiction and by the end of the third chapter I just wanted D'Agata to throw in the towel and change the handful of details he used correctly to make the piece a work of pure work fiction instead of one thst is just mostly so. Looking over the back jacket at...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Cynthia K rated it 2 of 5 stars

After the first two chapters, I stopped reading the exchanges between the essay writer and the fact checker so that I could read the essay in its entirety. I had to find out if the author's assertion that verifiable facts and precise details didn't really matter to the art of his writing.
I'm still not sure if I agree.
On the one hand, the author tells his fact checker that his version of "facts" are more precise and less confusing to the reader. But how can bending the truth in the name of style...more

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Apr 13, 2012 David A. rated it 3 of 5 stars

"What is truth?" Pontius Pilate spits out that question, as much to himself as anyone, in the middle of his heated debate with Jesus Christ on the eve of his execution. The story is told every year during Holy Week, the most sacred seven days of the Christian calendar. It happened to be Holy Week as I read The Lifespan of a Fact, a short book that like Holy Week centers on a death and wrestles with the nature of truth. Unlike Holy Week, this story has no happy ending, no resurrection to redeem t...more "What is truth?" Pontius Pilate spits out that question, as much to himself as anyone, in the middle of his heated debate with Jesus Christ on the eve of his execution. The story is told every year during Holy Week, the most sacred seven days of the Christian calendar. It happened to be Holy Week as I read The Lifespan of a Fact, a short book that like Holy Week centers on a death and wrestles with the nature of truth. Unlike Holy Week, this story has no happy ending, no resurrection to redeem the tragedy. It's just two men arguing over the nature of truth while a third man leaps to his death.

OK, that's not exactly what the book is. A slim 123 pages of text, the book is based on an essay by John D'Agata about a young man's suicide in Las Vegas, written for a journal that employs interns and has them, among other things, serve as fact checkers for its content. Jim Fingal happily and naively (and a bit too familiarly) challenges some of the details in the opening lines of D'Agata's essay; D'Agata bristles at the cheekiness of the content and refuses to either defend or correct his loose use of facts; and the game is on. Fingal wants precision and clarity and coherence; D'Agata wants rhythmic sentences and thematic symmetry and literary beauty. They argue back and forth, their passions get the better of them, they bang their heads against each other's walls. They get nowhere with each other, raging back and forth while a young man muddles through a day that ends with him taking an elevator to the top of a casino, waving goodbye to a security guard and falling 9-make-that-8 seconds until landing on the ground below, dead.

The heart of the question between these two begins with the basic question of what the article is: is it essay-as-literature, as D'Agata contends, such that facts are secondary and modular utilities in the search for truth; or is it essay as explanation, which Fingal assumes and which, frankly, must have been the assumption of his boss as well, hence the assignment. D'Agata's casual relationship to factual precision is admittedly shocking, and he waits a frustratingly long time in the book to even begin to justify his approach and explain his writing ethic. Meanwhile Fingal is frustrating throughout, dissecting each detail of every sentence and passing judgment on it as only a punk intern can, trying to prove his mettle with the wrong set of proofs. We reach the impasse between these two within the first couple of pages, and wait nearly ninety pages before really broaching the question that plagued Pilate as he sentenced Jesus to death. And even then, we're haunted by the fact, undisputed on either side of the debate, that all 123 pages of back-and-forth have sprung from, and none of the 123 pages can remedy, the tragic death of a young man in a city that is far to resigned to the shocking numbers of suicides that plague its citizens year after year after year. As Fingal puts it, in a moment of moral clarity that is almost as tragic as the event itself, "Even if everything that's in question could be verified by unbiased third-party witnesses . . . well, then . . . I don't know. I'd have done my job. But wouldn't he still be dead?"

You will choose a side in this debate between D'Agata and Fingal, but it won't be easy, because both are clearly flawed characters, reacting out of their own insecurities and righteous indignation. They also both are great exemplars of their convictions; they confront each other with conviction and intellectual heft. It'll boil down to whether (a) you think an essay in a journal is a work of art or a piece of information and (b) you think truth is something that can be uncovered only by an amalgamation of facts or by the assertion of meaning. You might also be influenced by which of the debaters you find more obnoxious. D'Agata states his point concisely: "An essay is an attempt, Jim. Nothing else." Fingal states his conviction equally pungeantly: "You've got to ask yourself how far on the fringes of facticity someone is if not even Wikipedia agrees with them." And both of them ultimately fade to silence, appropriately, in the mutual acknowledgment that whether precise and accurate or mosaic and felt, unnecessary death is tragedy to be mourned and a wrong to be fought, never something to be trifled with.(less)

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Apr 14, 2012 Stacy rated it 4 of 5 stars

It gets an extra star for being such a quick read. It is essentially one short essay about Las Vegas suicides and one in particular, with a lot of literary embellishments and poetry along the way. In Cold Blood, essentially, but just a drop. This essay is then turned meta-essay by a clearly contrived back and forth between the real author and a real fact-checker. Both are full of themselves and love to hear their own voice pontificate, theorize, contradict, and play devil's advocate. Both are st...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Carla rated it 4 of 5 stars

An interesting read. The essayist tends to be vilified throughout, and I tended to side with the fact-checker most of the time. I've realized however, that I took this position because I didn't LIKE the writing of the author. If I had stumbled upon it online or in a magazine, I would have walked away from it feeling annoyed. He is trying to create metaphor and meaning where there really is none. Seeing where he blatantly made up facts reinforced my opinion that he was creating drivel. I've put i...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Donovan Richards rated it 5 of 5 stars

Evaluating Truth

Recently, I engaged in an existential debate regarding the meaning of book evaluation. My considerations began in December as I compiled my year-end lists. Surprisingly, I found that I rate fiction higher than nonfiction. As I explored the reasons behind my presuppositions, I learned that the rating scale is calibrated differently per genre. On fiction’s side, I rated a book on entertainment value, quality of language, and character development. On nonfiction’s side, I based my r...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

First, before you judge this book, you MUST read the whole thing. Seriously. If you read only the first 20 or so pages, you will probably come to the same conclusion that many of the high-profile reviewers came to, namely that D'Agata is a writer who blithely disregards "factual truth" in the name of art and thus undermines the credibility of nonfiction writers more broadly. Now, I am not going to defend his tendency to knowingly alter certain easily verifiable facts or published quotations for...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads

A couple years ago when I read About a Mountain I was irritated by D'Agata's tendentious juxtapositions and blatant "massaging" of the facts to create his account of Levi Presley's death. It was both the tone I hadn't liked and the open-ended fanciful suppositions - but I hadn't even realized how much D'Agata was playing with the facts. So here in reading The Lifespan of a Fact I got to observe a tedious dissection-via-fact-checking of every line of the original essay. Fingal becomes increasing...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Thom rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I think it was a 2012 "book a day" calendar that had this, and the blurb sounded interesting. The book was certainly different, but I came away not liking either of these guys.

This is an article, and a conversation about that article between the author and the magazine-hired fact checker. Both are hard-headed, and both go where they don't belong (the author changing facts on a whim and being a right prig to the the fact-checker; the fact-checker objecting to stuff that isn't a fact in the first...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Sara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

In recent years, there have been a number of scandals involving news agencies and their staff fudging or adjusting reports or manipulating photographs in order to present a story more dramatically or in a way that will increase the attention-grabbing factor. And in the age of the Internet, almost anything can, and will, be checked against the sources (whether those are reliable sources or not). In this short book, John D’Agata, author of an essay and Jim Fingal, a doggedly determined fact-checke...more In recent years, there have been a number of scandals involving news agencies and their staff fudging or adjusting reports or manipulating photographs in order to present a story more dramatically or in a way that will increase the attention-grabbing factor. And in the age of the Internet, almost anything can, and will, be checked against the sources (whether those are reliable sources or not). In this short book, John D’Agata, author of an essay and Jim Fingal, a doggedly determined fact-checker, debate, argue, and yes, fight, over truth versus accuracy, and whether the form of essay-writing should be held to higher journalistic standards.

The design of the text itself is rather confusing at first, as the body of the essay is printed in the center of each page, with the fact-checker’s commentary and dialogue with the author printed footnote-style around the borders of the page. It’s a little difficult to read straight through, but this isn’t the kind of book that you’d want to just read flat out anyway. The fact-checker is extremely thorough, to the point of nitpicking, and though I wholeheartedly support his efforts, I do feel for the author, whose irritation with the whole process shows through.

The back cover of this books reads, [this] “is a brilliant ad eye-opening meditation on the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘accuracy,’ and a penetrating conversation about whether it is appropriate for a writer to substitute one for the other.” This is an extremely high-blown and overly wordy way of saying, “here is a writer and a fact-checker arguing over their work;” as a librarian and an employee of a community college where we struggle daily to introduce the concept of information literacy to our students, I lean strongly towards the case of the fact-checker, whose attempts to track down and cite the references of the author are often futile. However, I wouldn’t put this book on any must-read lists, simply because the dialogue between the two tends to drag on and even becomes disillusioning after a while.(less)

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Sep 16, 2012 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 28, 2013 Franz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Often witty and always intriguing, this back and forth communication between D'Agata and the guy assigned to fact check one of his essays reveals a tension between truth and accuracy. Fingal, the fact checker, constantly prods D'Agata to provide evidence for events and descriptions D'Agata makes in his article. Often exasperated by these questions, D'Agata's attitude is that the truth he reveals in his essay doesn't depend on the accuracy of his claims. He fudges the facts and even makes things...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This was on my porch from Amazon when I got home this afternoon. Now I've read it. I hadn't planned on reading a book tonight...which is my roundabout way of saying "I enjoyed the hell out of this"

To read this so I could understand it, I had to read it twice. The first time through, I just read the essay, which by itself is great. The second time through I read the notes: the fact-checker's relentless disputes and the author's sometimes irritated, smart-ass, dismissive, clarifying and compelling...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Did John D'Agata plan this all along?

He's an awareness-raiser for the essay, and an envelope-pusher when it comes to genre. Was the making of this book just a 7-year plot to lean against the edges of what we expect an essay to be?

Here's what happened: D'Agata submitted a piece to The Believer for publication, a piece which was, ostensibly, a true account of the suicide of a Las Vegas teen. The article-essay also included D'Agata's own personal experience of the chain of events and explored the n...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Elizabeth Schuh rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is a dialogue between John D'Agata, an author known for bending facts in the name of painting a larger Truth, and fact-checker Jim Fingal. The two battle it out over the nature of facts, journalism, non-fiction, and art through a series of emails. I came away sincerely disliking D'Agata but on occasion agreeing with him.

The book asks interesting questions. What is a fact? What should we expect from journalism? Non-fiction? An essay? Should the reader be expected to understand D'Agata'...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: four-star-reads, pad

It was serendipitous to read the back and forth at the end of this book while This American Life devotes an entire episode on fact checking the Apple "essay" (the same argument holding forth in this book).

The materials were delivered well, the author and fact-checker were snarky and pedantic and tedious and fascinating and interesting. This may be about fact checking an article that I would never have finished (I don't actually like the author's writing) but that may be because I side with the...more

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Mar 24, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: creative-endeavours, nonfiction, postmodern, annotated-texts

I'm still struggling with my thoughts on this book, so here are just a few points.

First, I think it's kind of ironic that the book is an argument in how truthfully a essay is presented when it's clear that some editing, compressing, & rearranging went on to present John & Jim's conversation in an "entertaining" way. You don't write back & forth for seven years & have it come out as nicely structured as this book. The meta quality of it all amuses & irritates me.

Second, for al...more

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Sep 24, 2012 Kyle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-books

This book is to the 24-hour news cycle as "No Logo" was to corporate branding: completely revelatory. It is one of the best pieces of non-fiction I have read in the last decade.... and it broke my brain. In the center of this book is a short article that journalist John D'Agata wrote about a suicide in Las Vegas, but that is kind of beside the point. The rest of this book is found in the marginalia, which is filled with the notes and emails and correspondence of the author, editor and fact-check...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Kimberly French rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book requires a very particular kind of reader, and as an editor and nonfiction writer, I definitely fit the demographic. The concept is very creative, but very challenging to read also: a book that includes a nonfiction essay questioning our definitions of factuality and perception, with complete annotations by an extremely through fact checker and his debates with the essay's author. The juiciest part is a philosophical discussion about the genres of nonfiction, journalism, and essay that...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll keep this simple: I agree with John D'Agata. I think the term nonfiction is problematic, and I wish D'Agata would have raised the issue of the term "creative nonfiction" just once when Fingal kept referring to "nonfiction" and "not fictional." It's much more complex than either/or. But D'Agata confirms my own stance, that I, too, prefer "essay" (my autocorrect just changed that to "easy"--ha). What I write is, at its core, an attempt to get AT something and to get at it in an artistic, imag...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Mark Flowers rated it 2 of 5 stars

The concept of this is book great, and Fingal's comments are generally fascinating (though even I agree that he sometimes picks a few too many nits).

But the first thing I noticed about this book is that the essay D'Agata and Fingal are fighting over is a piece of shit, which significantly mitigates D'Agata's claims to stand in the company of Cicero, Orwell, and Thoreau. Also, D'Agata himself is a piece of shit, deliberately misunderstanding what Fingal is trying to say constantly. So you're lef...more

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Jul 29, 2012 cheeseblab rated it 4 of 5 stars

Golly, what a spectacularly annoying book! I knew from a review I'd read that John D'Agata--who has dedicated himself to making us all recognize that writing is simply writing, that the notion of journalistic accuracy is a solecism, and that, basically, he should be able to write about a topic in the ostensibly real world however he damn well pleases, regardless of any ostensibly objective facts in that world--is a real horse's ass, but the surprise came when I discovered what a smug, self-satis...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Jeff Raymond rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-essays-and-journalism, read-social-psych, read-nonfiction

This is definitely one of the more fascinating books I've read in some time. John D'Agata wrote a piece about a suicide in Las Vegas, and the magazine that was printing it had the general fact-check go through, and it turns out D'Agata had misrepresented, misquoted, and otherwise inaccurately portrayed a lot of what had occurred. He did so out of a more artistic license, insisting he was not a journalist and thus wasn't to be held to those standards, but his fact checker kept going anyway. The b...more

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11583972-the-lifespan-of-a-fact?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347400587l/11583972.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11583972-the-lifespan-of-a-fact?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Lifespan of a Fact by John D'Agata[/url]

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