The Art of Friction: Where (Non)Fictions Come Together

Charles Blackstone · Jill Talbot

Jun 2009 · University of Texas Press

About this ebook

"We live in an Enquirer, reality television–addled world, a world in which most college students receive their news from the Daily Show and discourse via text message," assert Charles Blackstone and Jill Talbot. "Recently, two nonfiction writers have been criticized for falsifying memoirs. Oprah excoriated James Frey on her show; Nasdijj was impugned by Sherman Alexie in Time. Is our next trend in literature to lock down such boundaries among the literati? Or should we address the fictionalizing of nonfiction, the truth of fiction?"

The Art of Friction surveys the borderlands where fiction and nonfiction intersect, commingle, and challenge genre lines. It anthologizes nineteen creative works by contemporary, award-winning writers including Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Thomas Beller, Bernard Cooper, Wendy McClure, and Terry Tempest Williams, who also provide companion pieces in which they comment on their work. These selections, which place short stories and personal essays (and hybrids of the two) side by side, allow readers to examine the similarities and differences between the genres, as well as explore the trends in genre overlap.

Functioning as both a reader and a discussion of the craft of writing, The Art of Friction is a timely, essential book for all writers and readers who seek the truthfulness of lived experience through (non)fictions.

Ratings and reviews

Tom Beller in "The Sleep-over Artist", like many gifted writers, is really writing about HIMSELF when he invents a protagonist. The teenage 'Alex Fader' is nothing more than the teenage Tom B. himself longing to pick up girls his own age (and hopefully older) but not knowing HOW. So what better 'primer' than the hit NYC cableTV show "The Ugly George Hour Of Truth, Sex & Violence"? Unknowingly, our Tom joins a long list of teenage-and-not-so-teenage Boys & Men learning this vital skill from the UG show-and 'taking notes'... I could 'name names' but certain politicians, movie stars, stock exchange heads & assorted literati might be offended!

About the author

Charles Blackstone is the author of The Week You Weren't Here, a novel. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire, Bridge, and The Journal of Experimental Fiction. He is a regular contributor to the "Writer's Block Party" segment on Chicago Public Radio's 848.

Jill Talbot is the author of Loaded: Women and Addiction. Her work has been published in Under the Sun, Cimarron Review, Blue Mesa Review, Notre Dame Review, and It's All Good.