The Lifespan of a Fact

he Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment

There was a fascinating story on NPR this morning, about embellishing the truth in writing. Most of us here, in the writing and publishing blogsphere, write fiction, so truth is of little consequence, unless it comes to properly researching the correct airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. But in non-fiction, narrative or otherwise, facts and truth, become a bit more paramount.

I’m sure you all remember James Frey, and his “memoir,” A Million Little Pieces. If you don’t, he’s the author who was publicly called out on Oprah Winfrey’s show, for falsifying many of the key details of his autobiography.

Anyway, this post isn’t about all that. It’s about the two gentlemen in the photo, and the new book that they’re involved in. The Lifespan of a Fact is a new book getting talked about for defending an author’s right to embellish facts, even in non-fiction. The two men in this photo are Jim Fingal (left), a fact-checker turned software engineer, and John D’Agata, who teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, and is the author of About a Mountain.

The Lifespan of a Fact focuses on an essay D’Agata wrote about a boy who committed suicide 16 years ago in Las Vegas, by jumping off the Stratosphere Tower. In the essay, D’Agata wrangles several dates, and twists the facts for dramatic effect, into an essay that while it may not shatter the truth, certainly bends it.

This new book contains the essay, and some correspondence between the two men, who had to work together for the essay to be published in The Believer, after it was rejected by Harpers. You can read the article at NPR, here, but the audio from the piece on Morning Edition will not be available until 9 AM.

What do you guys think? Have any of you ever written non-fiction? Even if you haven’t, do you think a writer has the right to embellish certain things, for dramatic effect? What if, writing about your own past, you simply can’t remember every detail?

Read more at Matthew MacNish