Longreads

ANDER MONSONon John D’Agata and Jim Fingal’s The Lifespan of a Fact. And What About The Truth, 2004 (red and blue neon, changing color daily.) © Maurizio NannucciJohn D’Agata…

LEE GUTKINDon John D’Agata and Jim Fingal’s The Lifespan of a Fact. John D’Agata and Jim FingalThe Lifespan of a Fact W.W. Norton & Company, February 2012. 128 pp.A writer…

Once upon a time, a little boy loved a stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit. It was so old, in fact, that it was really an unstuffed animal; so old that even back then, with the little boy's brain still nice and fresh, he had no memory of it as "Young Rabbit," or even "Rabbit"; so old that Old Rabbit was barely a rabbit at all but rather a greasy hunk of skin without eyes and ears, with a single red stitch where its tongue used to be. The little boy didn't know why he loved Old Rabbit; he just did, and the night he threw it out the car window was the night he learned how to pray.