Measuring the lifespan of a fact is no easy task

Originally printed Feb. 22, 2012.

When my kids force me to watch "Dinosaur Train" with them on PBS, the most redeeming feature is "Dr. Scott," the real life paleontologist Scott Sampson who ends every episode with a quick, kid-friendly account of all science featured on the show.

But the "Dinosaur Train" scriptwriters also seem to think that some parents just won't be able to appreciate the sheer absurdity of telling the story of a family of pteranodons, with an adopted baby T-Rex, who learn about other dinosaur species aboard a time-traveling, passenger train.

So, Sampson's closing segments at times also include a character who offers a refutation of the most fantastical features of the program. Dressed in a lawyerly suit and stuffy bowler hat, "Mr. Disclaimer" bursts into the scene and interrupts with short, terse, obvious statements such as, "Point of fact: Dinosaurs did not play Dino-ball!"

"Dinosaur Train" scripts, of course, are a far cry from the type of quality writing associated with the faculty of the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program. But it's hard not think of Mr. Disclaimer, with his stiff voice and absurd outfit, when reading through "The Lifespan of a Fact," a highly intellectual and surprisingly theatratical dialogue co-written by UI professor John D'Agata and his frustrated fact checker Jim Fingal.

Back in 2003, a magazine commissioned D'Agata to write about a Las Vegas teen who committed suicide. The resulting essay eventually went on to become the foundation of D'Agata's award-winning book, "About a Mountain," but the magazine ultimately rejected the piece because, while moving and well written, it contained too many of what the editors considered "factual inaccuracies."

D'Agata then offered his essay to another magazine, who was interested in printing it, but assigned Fingal to fact check D'Agata's prose. Fingal immediately takes issue with so many of the assertions in D'Agata's opening paragraph that his senior editor gives up trying to address every point. Instead, the fact checker is left on his own to own find some kind of accommodation with a literary essayist who refuses to abide by the magazine's normal standards for nonfiction.

"The Lifespan of a Fact" tells the story of how D'Agata and Fingal utterly fail to find points of common ground in their understanding of "literary nonfiction" (a term that D'Agata despises despite being a professor of nonfiction). Each page includes a centered column of text from D'Agata's original essay surrounded by the email conversations between the journalistic editor and the essayist — between the artist and killjoy. When Fingal confirms a fact, the marginalia text is in black; when he disputes a fact, the marginalia text is in red.

Needless to say, there's a lot of red.

At times, Fingal comes across as a Dr. Scott — providing helpful information that corrects verifiable factual inaccuracies in a way that won't affect the tone and style of D'Agata's literary voice.

At other times, Fingal comes across as a verbose version of "Mr. Disclaimer," aggressively challenging facts and epistemological assumptions that have absolutely no bearing on the literary experience D'Agata is trying to create.

D'Agata, likewise, comes across at times as an artist whose broader vision is completely misunderstood by his editors. But in his unwillingness to make even the most basic of factual corrections, D'Agata loses his reader's sympathy — even as he makes the more compelling arguments about the intersection of art and life.

"It would 'ruin' it to make it more accurate?" Fingal asks at one point.

"Yup," is all that D'Agata replies.

Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com.

Klaus explores the made-up self

Originally printed November 3, 2010.

Can you hear it?

That voice sounding in your head as your eyes scan these words.

If you've met me in person, the voice may sound a bit like my actual voice.

Otherwise the voice probably sounds a lot like your own.

But there is no voice.

No sound.

Just words impersonating a personality.

Just long sentences that meander across several lines of type and that -- hopefully -- hold your attention as raptly as does Garrison Keillor's disembodied voice crackling from the radio during the "News from Lake Wobegon" segment of "A Prairie Home Companion."

Or short sentences.

Fragments.

Powerfully punchy phrases that accentuate the effect.

That make it really seem as if I'm talking to you -- instead of sitting here, writing these words in longhand while eating breakfast at the Hamburg Inn. Or sitting here typing my notes in my office at the Press-Citizen.

It's the virtuality (and changeability) of this kind of voice that has captivated Carl Klaus throughout his long career as a professor of nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa. After becoming one of the foremost experts on the personal essay -- especially those personal essays that are explicitly about writing personal essays -- Klaus recently distilled his career's worth of insight into a slim, 150-page book titled "The Made-Up Self: Impersonation in the Personal Essay" (University of Iowa Press, 2010).

"But the 'person' in a personal essay is a written construct," Klaus writes in his prologue, "a fabricated thing, a character of sorts -- the sound of its voice a by-product of carefully chosen words, its recollection of experience, its run of thought and feeling, much tidier than the mess of memories, thoughts and feelings arising in one's consciousness."

And the writing of such a book must have been a very difficult, self-reflective process. Not only does Klaus' analysis need to be dead on (because his fellow scholars will be familiar with much of the material), not only does his every sentence need to serve as a textbook example of felicitous prose (because his fellow writers and students will be looking for him to show and not just tell), but Klaus also can't help but be acutely aware of the many different personae he adopts when trying to create the illusion of a scholarly, friendly, intimate voice guiding readers through some of the most powerful personal essays ever written.

But Klaus then goes on to show how the supposed "tidiness" of these personal essays is itself a verbal illusion. In his careful readings of Michel de Montaigne, Charles Lamb, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, E.B. White and a host of other more recent authors, Klaus shows how the "I" of the personal essay proves to be every bit as discontinuous, inconsistent and off-point as the individuals who decided to put pen to paper -- or fingers to keyboard -- and transcribe their thoughts.

"The voice of a personal essayist may, after all, be as mutable as life itself," Klaus writes.

And although Klaus presents a highly concentrated history of the personal essay over the past few centuries, his observations are equally appropriate for 21st-century writers looking to bypass the printed page altogether and create that personalized virtual voice solely in the virtual world. Whether you're writing under your own name, enjoying the pseudonymity afforded by usernames or ventriloquizing the consensus opinion of a larger group, Klaus not only helps explain how past writers have brought order to verbal chaos, but he also explains how to make sure that such imposed order always retains some of the power and mutability of that original chaos.

"Change, after all, is in the air -- it touches us, touches our words, touches our personae, as it touches all things," Klaus writes. "So, a voice for all seasons could only exist in a world without change, a life without death. The 'I' is mutable, whether we will it or not."

The flesh-and-blood Carl Klaus will be reading from "The Made-Up Self" at 7 p.m. today in Van Allen Hall on the UI campus. And although the reading is not an official part of this week's Nonfiction Now Conference at UI, Klaus -- as the founding director of UI's nonfiction program -- surely will offer a important introduction to that three-day event.

Contact Press-Citizen Opinion Editor Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com.

Bonnie Rough's 'Carrier' and reading genes like tea leaves

Originally printed on September 16, 2010.

Bonnie Rough must have had one of the most productive MFA defenses ever -- if only because the experience left her knowing exactly how to transform her thesis, "What We Become: Bushnell to Greeley," into her first book, "Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA."

Even before enrolling in the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, Rough knew she wanted to tell the story of her mother's complicated childhood. She also knew telling that story would require going into details about her grandfather, Earl, who suffered from a genetic condition, hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, that left him with sparse hair, few teeth, an inability to sweat and a lifetime full of infections and treatments.

During graduate school, Rough made use of Iowa City's central location for many research trips and pilgrimages to the Midwestern sites of her family history. She soon learned about the shooting of one of her grandfather's friends and initially thought the mystery surrounding that death would become the heart of Earl's story.

Viewing herself more as an essayist who writes short, brainy pieces that are unexpectedly scientific and creative -- she is working on an essay right now, for example, that connects Van Gogh and Armageddon -- Rough was well suited to dive into the medical literature on HED. She then marshaled her literary talents to round out her grandfather -- who had been demonized by the family -- as a character.

In the process, she was looking to explain:

• What made her grandfather into such a "pain in the neck"?

• What made her grandmother fall in love with him in the first place?

• And what legacy did his addiction and death leave on the family?

When she was ready to begin writing, Rough found herself telling the story from her grandfather's first-person perspective.

"It wasn't really an active decision on my part," Rough said. "Perhaps it was an expression of the empathy I was trying for."

Rough was passionate and productive in transcribing her grandfather's story, and soon she had enough material to submit for her MFA thesis. But as her defense rolled around, she didn't think she had an answer for the standard questions she knew her committee members would ask: "Why does this story matter to you? And why are you telling it now?"

Although Rough didn't fully realize it at the time, she already had written the answer to those questions. About the same time as her defense in 2005, Rough published an essay in the New York Times about the new ethical decisions she and her husband, Dan, faced now that technology was available to determine whether she was a carrier for HED. Should she risk passing on the disorder to any children they may decide to have?

"But now, in the 21st century, 'God's will' is not a force Dan and I have to accept. 'What is our will?' we ask ourselves," Rough wrote in her essay, comparing the decision facing her to the decisions that her ancestors faced.

Luckily, Rough's committee had read the essay before the defense. And when she failed to come up with a satisfactory answer to the standard questions, one of her committee members -- David Hamilton -- helped her connect all the dots.

"He asked, 'Isn't it true that your grandfather represents your own worst fears for your children?'" Rough said. "And at that moment, I knew what my book needed to become. I knew I wasn't finished with the story yet. ... I had another four years of living to do before I could bring the book to an end."

And it's because of Rough's decision to combine her grandfather's story with her own that "Carrier" now is receiving such positive attention and praise from all sides of the bio-ethical divide.

Some reviewers were initially skeptical of the appropriateness of Rough's first-person re-creations of the past, but those passages work well precisely because they highlight and provide historical context for the tough ethical decisions faced by Rough and by countless other people who want to peek at what their genes portend about their progeny.

Press-Citizen Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435.

The most un-Hunter Thompson Vegas book

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Feb. 10, 2010.

By Jeff Charis-Carlson, Iowa Cityscapes

Last year, John D'Agata, an associate professor at the University of Iowa, explained to me his vision of what literary nonfiction writing is all about.

Beholden neither to a journalist's commitment to veracity nor to the strictures of academic argument, he said, the creative nonfiction writer is free to produce essays that allow readers to experience the world -- essays that strive to "enact the world."

"If the critic fails to prove his case, then his essay is a failure," D'Agata said. "For us, it's quite the opposite. There are no promises made. No guarantees that answers will be found or that problems will be solved."

In "About a Mountain," D'Agata lives up to that vision by providing an enjoyable, fast-paced yet highly literary account of the federal government's plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

But that's far too straight-forward a summary of the many things included in this book. Yes, D'Agata provides in-depth readings of the lengthy congressional debates on Yucca Mountain -- and it's simply amazing how many inconsistencies one writer can find and lampoon when reading through transcripts and news reports. But "About a Mountain" also manages to tell very personal and human stories of the seductive allure of Los Vegas.

D'Agata himself is a constant presence in the book as he narrates his experiences in Las Vegas doing research. But "About a Mountain" has nothing in common with the gonzo journalism of earlier generations. In fact, Scott Dickensheets of the Los Vegas Weekly says that it's hard to think of "a Vegas book that's more opposite of the Hunter Thompson approach."

Instead, D'Agata lives up to his vision of having the facts and stories in nonfiction proceed "less journalistically and more processionally." He moves effortlessly between readings of government policy documents, accounts on the history of nuclear waste, passages about his mother and efforts to put a human face on Vegas's high suicide rate. And in the book's best chapter, D'Agata describes and enacts the linguistic difficulty of writing a sign that still will convey "DANGER" to whatever humans happen to be strolling around the still radioactive Yucca site 10,000 years from now.

D'Agata promises neither answers nor solutions, but if you need help figuring out what unifying narrative force helps tie all this together into one book, you can ask him in person after he reads at 7 p.m. today in Van Allen Hall 2 or during the book signing at Prairie Lights afterward.

Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435.

Visiting nonfiction writers

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Nov. 11, 2009

Visiting nonfiction writers

By Jeff Charis-Carlson

Iowa Cityscapes

Tonight the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program will host its final visiting writer for the fall semester: Gretel Ehrlich, the author of 13 books and the recipient of this year's PEN/Thoreau Award for "innovative environmental writing."

John D'Agata, UI associate professor of nonfiction, described Ehrlich as "a nature writer, but it's a nature writing that isn't sanctimonious. It's deeply felt, and even highly spiritual, yet it's also grounded in science and the diamond-sharp scrutiny of a naturalist."

Ehrlich will be the latest in a series of visiting writers the program is bringing in to help assure its students -- as well as to persuade the City of Literature at large -- that nonfiction writing is a creative process on par with fiction writing and poetry. Beholden neither to a journalist's commitment to veracity nor to the strictures of academic argument, the creative nonfiction writer is free to produce essays that allow readers to experience the world -- essays that can bridge the spiritual, the natural and the scientific.

As with visiting writer John McPhee earlier this year, Erlich offers local residents a chance to hear from a nonfiction writer who has helped to shape how the genre has evolved. Her first book, "The Solace of Open Spaces," especially has been hailed as a modern classic of nonfiction writing.

Erlich will read at 7 p.m. today in 101 Becker Communication Studies Building. In addition to the Nonfiction Writing Program, her reading is being sponsored by UI's English Department, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Provost's Office.

Do UI and Iowa City appreciate nonfiction writers?

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Sept. 29, 2009

Do UI and Iowa City appreciate nonfiction writers?

By Jeff Charis-Carlson

Iowa Cityscapes

"This is not an easy town to be a nonfiction writer in," University of Iowa professor John D'Agata told me.

D'Agata's observation was a small part of a meandering but still intriguing answer (what else would one expect from an essayist?) to a straightforward question about why the UI Nonfiction Writing Program decided to invite Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee and longtime radio host Michael Silverblatt to come to The Englert Theatre tonight.

"The university doesn't celebrate the genre like we do poetry and fiction," D'Agata said. "Yet I don't have a single student who doesn't believe that they aren't creating literature."

With the nonfiction program separated from the Writers' Workshop, D'Agata said his students sometimes feel cut off from their fellow creative writers. And our local UNESCO-recognized City of Literature likewise downplays the accomplishments of the many creative nonfiction writers with Iowa City ties.

That's why the Nonfiction Writing Program has developed a new lecture series and invited a number of writers to help assure students -- as well as persuade the city at large -- that nonfiction writing is a creative process. Beholden neither to a journalist's commitment to veracity nor to the strictures of academic argument, the creative nonfiction writer is free to produce essays that allow readers to experience the world -- essays that strive to "enact the world."

"If the critic fails to prove his case, then his essay is a failure," D'Agata said. "For us, it's quite the opposite. There are no promises made. No guarantees that answers will be found or that problems will be solved."

Yet these writers still have something to say about topics that go beyond their personal experiences. That's why McPhee -- author of more than 30 books of nonfiction -- is an ideal big-name author to help kick off a lecture series about the craft of creative nonfiction writing.

"Most of the writers in this field who try to integrate a certain kind of research probably do use McPhee as a model," D'Agata said. "He was writing something different than the literary journalists, the gonzo journalists, the Hunter S. Thompsons. ... The style of his long-form narrative, which he models after fiction, proceeds less journalistically than processionally."

Because tonight's event will combine McPhee, as a pioneer of the genre, and Siverblatt, as an expert literary interviewer, it's sure to provide some good literary conversation. But we'll have to wait and see if the event does anything to help the residents of our City of Literature -- not to mention the university -- to better appreciate the full range of the writers in their midst.

Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435.