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Feb/Mar 2010

The Shock of the Real

David Shields makes a case against the seduction of fiction

Jami Attenberg


Reality Hunger:

A Manifesto

by David Shields

$24.95 List Price

For more info visit:
Amazon • IndieBound

In aphorism 462 of David Shields's tenth book, the invigorating Reality Hunger, he observes, "All writing is autobiography: everything that you write, including criticism and fiction, writes you as you write it." I'll take that dare. The book was intended as an ars poetica for artists—from essayists to filmmakers to comedians to rappers—who infuse "reality" (Shields's quotes, not mine; this is the kind of book that constantly questions accepted ideas) into their work. The book is also clearly the record of a man trying to figure out why he does what he does, where he's coming from, and where he intends to go. And this, perhaps, is where Reality Hunger is most successful, because what emerges is a portrait of a very smart man vigorously engaged with, and contributing to, the world of ideas. Organized first in

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