Matters of Fact: Reading Nonfiction over the Edge

Matters of Fact examines what happens when writers and readers encounter texts presented as nonfiction: texts that make some truth claim on outside experience, texts whose characters and events have at least some tangible dimension outside the written word. The current critical climate blurs most meaningful distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. Literary critics have argued that since experiences can be approached only through the stories we tell about them, it is futile to attem…