Reality Hunger
It was back in October 2009 that we first heard about Reality Hunger, David Shields’s stupendous counterblast to all conventional literary pieties. And then, just as we were reading the American galley proof, Zadie Smith’s new essay, written partly in response to the book, dropped into our in-box. As she wrote in ‘The Lure of the Essay’ – which was later published in the Guardian – Reality Hunger is a thrilling read. We bought the rights and will be publishing it alongside Knopf in the US in February 2010.
Perhaps best summed up as an open call for new literary and other art forms to match the complexities of the 21st century, the author sets out to demolish the artificial wall between fiction and non-fiction and to chart the rise of a new “truthiness” in which writers are increasingly responding to an unbearably artificial world by breaking ever larger chunks of “reality” into their work.
Circulating as a proof ahead of publication the book already has endorsements from Jonathan Lethem, Geoff Dyer, J.M. Coetzee, Lydia Davis, Rick Moody and a host of others, including Frederick Barthelme, who asks: “Why is this man always writing the most interesting books? I think he is not from our country.”
Read more at www.davidshields.com, watch David Shields talking about the book and read a Bookslut interview with him here.
With not much time now until publication, David Shield’s provocative manifesto has been causing a stir on- and offline, kicking off with Zadie Smith’s piece in the Guardian, which called it ‘Thrilling to read’ .
There are follow-up discussions and arguments all over the web, saying things like: ‘It has the potential to be era-defining. That’s how good it is’ ; ‘My goodness, [this] book has buzz’ ; ‘A wake-up call … a call-to-arms’ ; and ‘The intriguing possibility [is] that a book of ideas will capture the popular interest early next year’ .
And the debate continues with mentions, arguments and disagreements on The Blog to Nowhere, Fictionaut Blog, Henri Art Magazine, The Ethical Exhibitionist, This Space, The Writers’ Guild, Red Room Library and Knee-Jerk , to name but a few . . .