Welcome Deep Divers. Have you ever paused mid
scroll or maybe mid read mid watch and felt that
kind of insistent pull, you know, between what
feels just completely undeniably real and what,
you know, intellectually is actually a carefully
constructed story? Yeah, that line. That ever
blurring line between, let's say, authenticity
and artifice in the stories we're taking in every
single day. It's a huge question. Really central
now. It is. And it's precisely what we're here
to unpack today. We're taking a deep dive into
the mind and, frankly, the radical work of an
author and filmmaker who hasn't just explored
these boundaries. No, he's been actively shaping
them for decades. Exactly. David Shields. He's
a true provocateur, a relentless innovator, someone
whose ideas have genuinely reshaped how we think
about storytelling in the 21st century. And that's
the perfect way to frame it because Shields isn't
just, you know, watching these big shifts happen
from the sidelines. He's a fervent, almost, you
could say, evangelical advocate for totally new
forms of expression. He believes they're absolutely
essential. Essential for what, exactly? essential
to reflect our contemporary experience. The way
we interact with information now, with narrative,
with reality itself. His work, it really challenges
our deepest ideas about genre, about authorship,
even about truth in art. Right, he pushes us
to question basically everything we thought we
knew about how stories get told and how we receive
them. He really does. So our mission today is
pretty clear. We're going to try and understand
Shields' fascinating evolution as an artist.
will trace his journey from, say, his early,
more traditional fiction right up to his groundbreaking
and, yeah, often polarizing manifesto, Reality
Hunger. That book made waves, big waves. Definitely.
We'll look at how his radical ideas sparked both,
you know, passionate praise and it's been pretty
serious controversy. And ultimately how they've
profoundly influenced modern literature, documentary,
film, and maybe even the way you approach the
huge tapestry of stories you encounter every
day. Yeah, it connects directly. We're going
to explore why his work feels so urgent, so relevant,
especially now, in an age where those lines between
fact and fabrication, between the authentic and
the, well, curated, just seem thinner than ever.
More permeable, yeah. Exactly. So to really get
a handle on where Shields' ideas came from, this
relentless drive to challenge artistic norms,
his skepticism towards traditional stories. we
need to rewind a bit. Go back to beginning. Yeah,
go back to his origins, to the environment where
his thinking was really forged. David Shields,
born in Los Angeles, 1956, into what's described
as a lower middle class Jewish family. Okay.
Now, his parents weren't, you know, your typical
suburban couple. Both were journalists. Ah, that's
interesting. Right there. Huge clue about the
intellectual and maybe ethical climate he grew
up in. His mother was the West Coast correspondent
for The Nation for years, a political activist
deeply involved. Her life was about pursuing
truth, exposing power. Wow. The Nation. Serious
stuff. Totally. And his father, a speechwriter
for progressive politicians. a wordsmith, crafting
messages to persuade, to inspire, to frame public
debate. So words and truth and the framing of
truth were central from the start. Can you imagine
the dinner table conversations? Yeah. Not exactly
small talk, I bet. Probably not, no. Then, 1962,
Shields is just six, the family moves to San
Francisco. right into the heart of it all, the
anti -war movement, the civil rights movement,
very politically charged atmosphere. Right, and
the thick of things. And they weren't just observers.
His parents were deeply involved. They often
opened their home, offered it as a shelter, a
safe haven for people involved in the movements.
Really walking the walk. Absolutely. So this
wasn't just childhood. It was like an immersion
course in social justice and critical thinking
and, you know, taking apart dominant narratives,
constantly engaging with big issues. So growing
up around journalists, activists. Yeah. people
always questioning, investigating. It had to
instill a critical perspective, right? On truth
itself, how stories are built, the power dynamics
behind them, how they get shaped and consumed.
You can absolutely see the seeds there. For his
later work questioning artistic authenticity,
the whole fabric of storytelling, he was almost
predisposed to ask. What's real here and how
is it being presented? Exactly. But what's really
fascinating, I think, is that while he's absorbing
all this critique, this deconstruction, he's
also getting this incredibly strong traditional
grounding in literature. Right. He wasn't just
rebelling blindly. He knew the forms first. Precisely.
He mastered them before he started dismantling
them. So after that upbringing, he goes to Brown
University, graduates Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum
Laude, 1978. BA with honors in British and American
literature. Okay, so seriously rigorous academic
background. Deep dive into the canon. Definitely
shows high intelligence, but also, yeah, serious
engagement with established literary traditions.
And then he goes on to get an MFA, honors in
fiction. from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1980.
Iowa. Wow. That's like the pinnacle of traditional
literary training. Exactly. So before he's tearing
down genre walls, before the radical experiments,
he was educated inside those walls, learned the
rules, the mechanics from the inside out. Which
makes his later critiques even more powerful,
right? Because they come from this place of deep
understanding. Absolutely. He knew exactly what
he was taking apart and why he felt he needed
to. It wasn't naive rejection. And it's that
combination is that critical activist background
plus the rigorous traditional education that
makes his early career so interesting to track.
Yeah, you see the shift starting. His first steps
are pretty conventional. Debut novel, Heroes,
1984, about a sports writer, college basketball
player, fairly standard premise, right? Sounds
like it, yeah. But then, just five years later,
1989, Knopf publishes his second novel, Dead
Languages. And this one's different. semi -autobiographical,
about his own experience growing up with a severe
stutter. Getting more personal, closer to home.
And here's where it gets really interesting.
The sources say while it was still technically
fiction, it used significantly larger shards
of reality than the first book. Shards of reality.
I like that phrasing. It's good, isn't it? And
it really marks that initial phase of his shift
toward nonfiction. Hints of the collage, the
anti -novel stuff to come. He's pushing at the
edges of fiction. Leading real life into the
narrative. Exactly. Seeing how much reality the
form could hold. He continued this with Handbook
for Drowning in 92, a novel and stories. Still
experimenting with structure, fragmenting things.
Like the traditional container wasn't quite big
enough anymore for what he wanted to explore.
He was testing the structural integrity of fiction
itself. And if you connect that to the bigger
picture, this wasn't just, you know, his artistic
journey. It was a signal, a kind of harbinger
of the genre -bending that would really define
his later stuff. So when did it really crystallize?
When did that evolution become something properly
groundbreaking? I'd say the pivotal moment was
1996. Publication of Remote. Reflections on life
in the shadow of celebrity. Okay, Remote. This
was Shields's first explicitly literary collage.
A .O. Scott, I think it was in Newsday, called
it one of the definitive texts of the 1990s,
a trim, elegant, nonfiction answer to Infinite
Jest. Wow, comparing it to Infinite Jest, that's
serious praise. It is. Because remote isn't a
linear story, it's a mosaic. Observations, anecdotes,
quotes, reflections, all circling around celebrity
culture. It's distorting influence. So the coherence
comes from the theme, the collection, not a plot.
Exactly. Like a curated exhibition in book form.
Yeah. And this book, it wasn't just a personal
win for Shields. It cemented his reputation as
a pioneer of collage. And crucially, it laid
the groundwork intellectually and stylistically
for the even more radical ideas in his most famous
work later on. Manifesto. Manifesto. Remote showed
he wasn't just writing about reality, he was
starting to use reality itself fragmented, sampled
as his main artistic medium, building his case
piece by piece. And it feels like all those threads
we talked about, the journalism background, the
activism, the traditional education, those early
experiments, it all just had to converge, didn't
it? Seems inevitable looking back. Converging
towards that seismic event. Reality hunger. A
manifesto. published by Knopf in 2010. And this
wasn't just, you know, a discussion. It was a
declaration, a challenge. A call to arms, really.
Absolutely. A provocation aimed right at the
heart of contemporary art and literature. Alyssa
Chappelle in Vanity Fair nailed it, didn't she?
She called it a rousing call to arms for all
artists to reject the laws governing appropriation,
obliterate the boundaries between fiction and
nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form
for a new century. I mean, talk about making
a statement. It was like an artistic bomb dropped
onto the scene. And it had legs. Linhub later
called it one of the 100 most important books
of the 2010s. It genuinely shaped the decade.
So what does this mean for us? as readers, as
consumers of art. It means we're dealing with
a text that tried to redefine the whole game.
And it sparked this huge necessary conversation
about what art is, what it could be. Yeah, it
fundamentally changes how you might approach
the stuff you read or watch, doesn't it? Absolutely.
And Reality Hunger isn't just about an idea.
The book itself is the idea in action. It embodies
its own argument. How so? Well, Shields' core
concept, the reality hunger itself, comes from
his observation of our culture, increasingly
fragmented, right? And he sees people having
this growing hunger for... doses of real life
injected into the art they experience. We crave
authenticity, even mediated authenticity. Like
on social media, reality TV. Exactly. And he
argued traditional genres, especially realist
fiction, just weren't cutting it anymore. They
hadn't changed much in centuries, he felt. They
were trying to capture reality with outdated
tools, failing to mirror the complexity, the
disjointedness of modern life. So the form itself
needed an update. That was his argument. And
the book's structure is that update. It's not
a linear argument. It's 618 numbered passages,
26 chapters. And here's the kicker. Yeah. Roughly
half the words in the book are from other sources,
not Shields himself. Half, wow. That's not just
influence. That's full on appropriation as a
method. And the attributions? Apparently, Random
House lawyers insisted so they're stuck in a
fine print appendix at the end. But Shields didn't
want them there. No. He actually encouraged readers
to cut those pages out. To preserve the disorienting
effect, he said, force you to engage with the
ideas regardless of who first wrote them. That's
incredibly bold. It's him demonstrating his whole
artistic philosophy, his ars poetica, right there
on the page. Precisely. Challenging the very
act of reading, questioning originality itself.
Okay, let's dive into the themes, because that's
where it gets really uncomfortable for some,
but maybe liberating for others. Starting with
the big one. Appropriation and, yeah, plagiarism.
The P word. The P word. He argues plagiarism
has always been part of art, that the stigma
is pretty recent, mostly tied to copyright law,
not some inherent moral wrong. Right, a legal
construct more than an artistic one, in his view.
And he doesn't just tolerate appropriation, he
encourages it. Wholesale appropriation, he says.
Reality -based art hijacks its material and doesn't
apologize. Strong words. But it's nuanced, isn't
it? He's not saying just steal stuff. No, not
quite. It's more about recontextualizing, representing
existing material to create something new, like
a DJ sampling a beat. Yeah, the hip -hop analogy
is key. He has a whole chapter on it. Right.
D -stake sampling, remixing, foundational to
hip -hop. He holds that up as a model for literature.
What's celebrated in music, taking existing sounds,
transforming them. Why not in writing? Seeing
the world's cultural output as this giant shared
resource pool. Exactly. Not just static copyrighted
things, but dynamic material for artists to reconfigure
to spark new meaning. So it makes you think,
right, in our remix culture online, sharing memes,
snippets, are we all kind of living this already?
Maybe informally, yeah. Is Shields just making
formal art catch up to how we actually engage
with information now? He's asking us to update
our definition of originality. And building on
that challenging authorship, he takes aim at
the wall between memoir and fiction. Ah, yeah,
that divide. He says it's mostly imaginary. Which
is pretty provocative. His logic is based on
how both forms actually work. Fiction writers.
They pull constantly from their own lives, memories,
observations. Sure, right? What do you know?
And memoirists. They aim for accuracy, sure,
but they rely on memory. And memory, Shield says
flatly, does not necessarily reflect the truth
of what occurred. So the act of remembering itself
is a kind of fictionalizing. That's his point,
leading to that killer quote, anything processed
by memory is fiction. The moment you recall,
shape, and narrate an experience, it's transformed.
It becomes an interpretation. So the value of
a memoir shouldn't just be about strict factual
accuracy. That's what he argues. It's a fascinating
thought experiment. Think about family stories,
how much reconstruction goes on there. All the
time. And he famously brings up James Frey. A
million little pieces. Oh yeah, the big scandal.
He made stuff up. Right. Huge public outcry.
Oprah got involved. But Shields' sys take was
different. He said Frey's real mistake wasn't
lying. It was apologizing. Really? Shields wrote,
I'm disappointed not that Frey is a liar, but
that he isn't a better one. He thought Frey should
own the artistic license. Said something like,
everyone who writes about himself is a liar.
I created someone better than me. Wow. Yeah.
That's quite a stance. It's not about endorsing
deception. It's about making us think critically
What is truth in a personal story factual accuracy
or emotional truth? Artistic truth it forces
you to see narrative as interpretation Always.
Yeah. Regardless of the label. Exactly. Making
us question our own demands for a true story.
And this breaking free from structures, from
categories, that leads right into his next big
theme, right? The call for new forms. Absolutely.
He puts huge importance on artists not just working
within forms, but actively creating new ones.
Forms that better fit our reality now. Because
genre boundaries. Our limitations. Confinement.
He calls genre that famous phrase... A minimum
security prism. Love that. His belief. Those
boundaries need constant bending, breaking, blurring.
Because life isn't neat, it's messy, fragmented,
defies easy boxes. And the form he champions
most is collage. Yes. Reality hunger itself is
a literary collage. He calls it an evolution
beyond narrative. Why, an evolution? Because,
he argues, traditional narrative beginning, middle,
and conflict resolved, it forces a false sense
of order onto the world. It suggests resolution
is inevitable. Like stories have to make sense,
have a neat ending. Right. And Shields challenges
that directly. He says, story seems to say that
everything happens for a reason, and I want to
say, no, it doesn't. That hits hard. because
we are conditioned to expect that narrative arc
in everything. We are. We look for cause and
effect, for meaning, even when it's not there.
And collage, for Shields, is more honest. It's
fragmented, open -ended. It reflects life's ambiguity.
It doesn't pretend to give you answers. Exactly.
It invites you to grapple with the questions,
like looking at a fractured mirror, each piece
shows something, but the whole picture is incomplete.
complex, more like reality. Yeah, that makes
a lot of sense. And what's really striking is
he didn't just write the manifesto and stop.
He lived it in his work afterwards. Kept putting
those ideas into practice. Vigorously. In the
decade after Reality Hunger, he published what?
a dozen more books, many collaborative, almost
all trying to embody that Ars Poetica. It wasn't
just theory, it was his blueprint. He walked
the talk. Totally. Look at Salinger, 2013, co
-written with Shane Salerno, a New York Times
bestseller. The oral biography. Right. It defied
nonfiction conventions. No single author voice
driving it. Instead, it pieces together interviews,
letters, accounts, a mosaic portrait from primary
sources. John Walsh in the Sunday Times called
it stupendous, said the world wouldn't need another
Salinger bio. High praise indeed. Then there's,
I think you're totally wrong, a quarrel in 2015
with Caleb Powell. Oh, the Book of Arguments.
Essentially, yeah. Transcribed conversations,
emails, two guys with very different views, praised
for erasing that boundary between the public
mask and the private self. Leslie Jameson said
the goal was an agreement but collaborative inquiry,
letting readers into the messiness. So applying
the collage fragment idea to relationships, dialogue.
And other collaborations did too. Jeff, one lonely
guy using dating profile material, that thing
you do with your mouth, the as -told -to -sexual
autobiography, all showing art made from raw
life, assembled, reassembled. And it's fascinating
how he uses that method, not just for personal
stuff, but to take apart bigger societal narratives,
powerful institutions even. Like with War is
Beautiful. Exactly. 2015, that book on New York
Times War Photography, not just showing photos,
but deconstructing them. Showing how aesthetically
pleasing images of conflict could. Glamorize
it. Manipulate perception. He sampled and remixed
the Times own images to reveal this hidden narrative
about media. beauty and power. Using their own
material against them in a way, critically. And
then nobody hates Trump more than Trump in 2018.
Again, a mosaic of quotes, observations, a found
object psychological portrait. Applying his methods
to contemporary politics. Shows his ideas aren't
just, you know, academic exercises. They're potent
tools for critically analyzing media, power,
the story shaping our world, peeling back the
layers. And that commitment to deconstruction,
montage, reality based art. It led him quite
naturally into documentary film, didn't it? Seems
like a logical next step. A powerful extension
of the collage style. His 2019 film, Lynch. A
history that was a major shift, he wrote, produced,
directed. About Marshawn Lynch, the football
player. Yes, but specifically about Lynch's use
of silence, echo, mimicry as forms of resistance
in the sports world. And the film itself uses
montage. Found footage, interviews, juxtapositions,
non -linear. just like his books. So the form
mirrored the subject. Beautifully. And it was
critically acclaimed. Premiered at Seattle Film
Fest, awards at IDFA, Amsterdam, Golden, Sunbreak,
Wynn. People really responded to it. They did.
Hwasoo and The New Yorker called it the culmination
of Shield's career, the ultimate expression of
his vision across media. He's still going. Oh,
yeah. Upcoming 2024 film and book, How We Got
Here, sounds typically audacious, drawing lines
between Melville, Nietzsche, Alan Bloom, Hujek,
and Steve Bannon. Wow. Right. Forcing us to see
unexpected connections shaping our present shows
the intellectual daring, the breadth of his reality
-based art, always pushing, connecting disparate
things to find new, maybe uncomfortable, insights.
OK, so back to reality hunger. As you'd expect,
a manifesto that bold, that boundary breaking.
It didn't land quietly. No, definitely stirred
the pot. Lots of debate controversy right from
the start. Absolutely. On one side, huge praise.
People felt he was articulating something they
already felt. Chuck Klosterman tweeted it might
be the most intense, thought -accelerating book
of the last 10 years. High praise from Klosterman.
And Lucy Sante in the NYT Book Review said it
urgently and succinctly addresses matters that
have been in the air. She even predicted his
book heralded the dominant modes to come. A paradigm
shift. Seeing it as the future. But not everyone
was buying it. Or maybe they felt he went too
far. Understandable resistance. The book provoked
substantial controversy, especially around his
death of the novel claims. Yeah, novelists weren't
thrilled about that. Understandably. And his
advocacy of appropriation or artistic plagiarism,
as critics saw it. James Wood in The New Yorker
called it highly problematic. What was his main
issue? Wood felt Shields promoted reality over
narrative without really examining what reality
meant. Too simplistic, maybe. He worried that
devaluing narrative meant losing the tools we
use to make sense of things, find meaning. A
valid concern, perhaps. Did Wood dismiss him
entirely? No, and this is key. Even Wood conceded
that Shields' arguments about the tediousness
and terminality of current fictional convention
are well taken. So even critics admitted he was
onto something, that he identified a real problem
even if they didn't like his solution. Exactly.
He hit a raw nerve, forced a conversation, even
a contentious one, made people re -examine assumptions.
That's often the mark of influential work. Right,
it makes things happen. And that impact, that
catalyzing effect, is why reality hunger has
been so influential on 21st century non -fiction,
on auto -fiction, on documentary film. It shaped
the landscape. Definitely. It gave artists permission,
almost, to blur lines, experiment with form,
engage more directly with the raw, messy stuff
of life, break out of that minimum security prison
of genre. Find new ways to talk about modern
life. And this influence isn't just theory. Look
at the recognition he's received over his career.
Beyond Reality, Hunger Buzz, Guggenheim Fellowship,
two NEAs, the P .N. Rebson Award, NYFA Fellowship.
Serious accolades. Plus the Film Awards for Lynch.
His book's hitting the New York Times bestseller
list. The thing about life is that one day, you'll
be dead, Salinger. Shows critical and popular
appeal. Black Planet was a finalist for the National
Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA. So a consistent
body of recognized work. Absolutely. It shows
that even when he's controversial, pushing boundaries,
making people uncomfortable, shields is a major
force. Constantly pushing the envelope of what
art can be and getting recognized for it. So
wrapping this up. What does it all mean for us
deep divers navigating our own lives? Lives full
of mediated reality. David Shields really emerges
as this... relentless innovator, right? A fearless
provocateur. Someone who makes us rethink storytelling,
rethink authenticity in art. From that start
in journalism and activism. Through mastering
traditional forms. To radically embracing collage
and appropriation. He just consistently challenged
the status quo, refused conventional boundaries.
His impact on how we think about narrative, truth,
genre in books. In film, it's undeniable. He
influenced everything from non -fiction structure
to doc - ethos. And he reminds us that the art
we consume, it's never just a simple mirror of
reality, it's always a construction, an interpretation,
a choice. And maybe as we finish, it's worth
thinking about this. In our age of deepfakes,
curated online lives, this overwhelming flood
of information, Shields' reality hunger feels
more urgent than ever. More relevant now than
in 2010, perhaps. Why possibly? His call to question,
deconstruct, seek new forms of truth and expression,
it feels vital. He forces us to be active engagers,
not just passive consumers. So the final thought
for everyone listening. With Shields' ideas swirling
around... How do you figure out what's authentic
in the art and info you take in daily? And maybe
what new forms, what new artistic answers might
emerge as our collective hunger for reality keeps
evolving in this really complex century? It's
a big question. It is. And it's one Shields'
work absolutely compels us to confront. It's
only going to become more important as we go
forward.