QUIZ: Stretching the Truth
How much do you know about writers who have blurred fact and fiction? Take our quiz and find out!
The Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell — onstage at Lantern Theater Company February 2 through March 5, 2023 — is a semi-true story inspired by the actual debate between John D’Agata, an essayist, and Jim Fingal, the fact checker assigned to verify his work. Much of the detail in D’Agata’s essay was fudged or outright fabricated — something D’Agata felt was perfectly justified by his attempt to provide the reader with a transcendent experience.
In an interview with the arts and politics magazine Guernica, the real-life D’Agata claimed that “the obsession with facts” is something he wants essay writers and readers to move beyond. If a writer can write in a way that moves the reader to feel connected to something larger, then D’Agata is “not worried about what part of their life they needed to massage in order to achieve something that I get to experience as transcendent. Because that’s the point of literature, I think: to connect.”
The line between metaphor and outright untruth becomes more challenging, though, if a work is experienced or sold as a factual text. D’Agata and many other contemporary essayists make no claim to journalistic practices — nor to journalistic standards or ethics—in their pursuit of a good story that tells a deeper truth. But what happens when a reader feels duped by the artistry, or when this creative license creeps further over the journalistic line?
In this quiz, test your knowledge of other famous fabulists—whether that word means “teller of fables” or “liar” is up to your interpretation as the reader.
Lantern Theater Company’s Philadelphia premiere production of The Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell is onstage February 2 through March 5, 2023, at St. Stephen’s Theater. Visit our website for tickets and information.
