A landmark book, "brilliant, thoughtful" (The Atlantic) and "raw and
gorgeous" (LA Times), that fast-forwards the discussion of the central
artistic issues of our time, from the bestselling author of The Thing
About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead.
Who owns ideas? How clear is the distinction between fiction and
nonfiction? Has the velocity of digital culture rendered traditional
modes obsolete? Exploring these and related questions, Shields
orchestrates a chorus of voices, past and present, to reframe debates
about the veracity of memoir and the relevance of the novel. He argues
that our culture is obsessed with "reality," precisely because we
experience hardly any, and urgently calls for new forms that embody and
convey the fractured nature of contemporary experience.