John D 'Agata's Essay What Happens There'

What is considered a harmful lie? Is it when it actually harms the person receiving the lie, or is it when it just initially deceives the person receiving it? Whether it physically or mentally does them harm, people see lying differently than others. In John D’Agata’s piece titled “What Happens There”, he tells of a young boy who commits suicide. He goes on to describe Las Vegas, where he lived and died, and about the boy’s life. Jim Fingal, an intern at The Believer, a magazine that picks up D’Agata’s piece, is told to fact-check the work. He does so, and he finds many factual mistakes and disputes throughout the original piece. He corresponds with D’Agata to find reasons and explanations, which is turned into a book in itself: The Lifespan of a Fact. This book combs through the entire original piece by D’Agata and points out every fact that cannot be proven or is “streamlined”. It became a big hit with the sarcastic comedy and arguing between the two, but it also caught the attention of other fact-checkers and writers who questioned the book as well. It was discovered that the book was also changed and edited to seem more …show more content…
He also claims throughout Lifespan of a Fact that it is not nonfiction or a journalistic piece (D’Agata, Fingal). D’Agata takes liberties while writing his piece and changes some of the facts to make the young boy who committed suicide, Levi—to make his life seem more interesting and make his suicide more unique and special. He claims that by doing this, it adds more of a flow and poetic style to his piece and that it also feels better to read for the reader. But with how much detail and specifics D’Agata puts into his piece, everything he says is taken at face value by the reader; they believe everything he says word-for-word. But as Jim Fingal points out, what D’Agata is doing is harmful to the