David Shields and Caleb Powell: I Think You're Totally Wrong

David Shields and Caleb Powell continue the debate they started in their new book I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel (Knopf). A former teacher and his student argue the big question: which is more important Life or Art? They reawaken the excitement of conversation by raising the heat, turning conversation into quarrel and quarrel into argument. How does a contemporary writer create a work that has the compression, concision and velocity of contemporary life? By opening himself to confrontation. By taking part in a face to face argument.