The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting
Now Available
In the 1970s, Lee Gutkind, a leather-clad hippie motorcyclist and former public relations writer, fought his way into the academy. Then he took on his colleagues. His goal: to make creative nonfiction an accepted academic discipline, one as vital as poetry, drama, and fiction. In this book Gutkind tells the true story of how creative nonfiction became a leading genre for both readers and writers.
Creative nonfiction—true stories enriched by relevant ideas, insights, and intimacies—offered liberation to writers, allowing them to push their work in freewheeling directions. The genre also opened doors to outsiders—doctors, lawyers, construction workers—who felt they had stories to tell about their lives and experiences.
Gutkind documents the evolution of the genre, discussing the lives and work of such practitioners as Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Rachel Carson, Upton Sinclair, Janet Malcolm, and Vivian Gornick. Gutkind also highlights the ethics of writing creative nonfiction, including how writers handle the distinctions between fact and fiction.
Read excerpts of the book at LitHub and Narratively, and a Narratively Q&A with Lee. You can also read reviews of this book from Hippocampus Magazine, The New York Journal of Books, The Washington Post, The Arts Fuse, and the TLS.
More about the bookPraise of Lee's Books
Gutkind is the Godfather Behind Creative Nonfiction.
Vanity Fair
The Leading Figure in the field.
Harper’s
In Fact is an electrifying anthology that covers the creative nonfiction universe from the personal essay to nature writing, literary journalism, and science writing.
Booklist
Almost Human is a crazy suspense story about these kids at Carnegie Mellon and their leader making robots . . . fascinating stuff.
Jon Stewart
Lee Gutkind rigorously practices what he preaches: he tells true stories—tales by turns painful and funny, with an often startling candor and an always redeeming humanity.
Mark Singer, The New Yorker, author of 'Funny Money' and 'Citizen K.'
If Hemingway had a Harley, Bike Fever is what he would have written.
United Features Syndicate
Forever Fat is a deeply moving account of one man’s physical and spiritual transformation, where never, never, never give in has particular resonance for anyone who has tried to piece together the truth of one’s life on the page, against the doubting voices that surround us.
Terry Tempest Williams, author of 'Leap and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place'
At the End of Life is unsparingly honest about doctoring, about decision-making, about their own ambivalent emotions. They have a lot to teach us.
Paula Span, the New York Times
At the End of Life is an impressive, meaningful, and often courageous chorus of voices tackling a once-taboo subject with dignity, giving strength and consolation particularly to those enduring the deaths of loved ones.
Almost Human is fascinating…Excellent reporting….chapters are filled with humanizing anecdotes about each researcher – and they are a zany bunch. One man subsisted for a time on Cheerios, chocolate milk and Budweiser. Another claimed to have wrestled a gorilla on a dare. Each set of quirks sets the stage for the researcher to explain why his work could someday change the world.
George Anders, The Wall Street Journal
Forever Fat, a collection of beautifully crafted personal essays . . . demonstrates the author’s mastery over his chosen genre. Always engrossing, the pieces convey emotional pain leavened with humor and are written with piercing honesty.
Publishers Weekly
Books
The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting
How a Bunch of Rabble-Rousers, Outsiders, and Ne’er-do-wells Concocted Creative Nonfiction
My Last Eight-Thousand Days
An American Male in his Seventies
(Anthology) Show Me All Your Scars
True Stories of Working Through Mental Illness
Bike Fever
On Motorcycle Culture
An Unspoken Art
Profiles of Veterinary Life
Same Time Next Week
True Stories of Working Through Mental Illness
Stuck in Time
The Tragedy of Childhood Mental Illness
The Art of Creative Nonfiction
Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality
The Best Seat In Baseball, But You Have to Stand
The Game as Umpires See It
Many Sleepless Nights
The World of Organ Transplantation
One Children’s Place
Inside a Children's Hospital
Forever Fat
Essays by the Godfather
Truckin’ With Sam
A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin' and Rollin', On the Road
Almost Human
Making Robots Think
In Fact
The Best of Creative Nonfiction
An Immense New Power to Heal
The Promise of Personalized Medicine
At the End of Life
True Stories About How We Die
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction—from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between
I Wasn’t Strong Like This When I Started Out
True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
True Crime
Real-life Stories of Grave-robbing, Identity Theft, Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, and More
Oh, Baby
True Stories About Conception, Adoption, Surrogacy, Pregnancy, Labor, and Love