We are pleased to welcome Austin Kelly and Dan Kaufman in celebration of the paperback release of The Fact Checker. Austin Kelley will be in conversation with labor journalist and former fact checker Dan Kaufman, The Fall of Wisconsin, about the novel, journalism, and political story-telling in 21st century America.

Austin Kelley’s critically acclaimed debut novel takes readers on a quixotic quest from one hidden corner of New York City to another—from an underground supper club in the Financial District to an abandoned-boat-turned-anarchist-community-space on the Gowanus Canal. As the story develops, the idealistic Fact Checker’s search for meaning, morality, and accuracy, goes awry in an increasingly post-truth world.

“The Fact Checker argues for a heightened sensitivity to the brutality of the food chain… But it’s also about the… gig economy, the division of labor in the field of writing as well as potatoes.” —Alexandra Jacobs, NY Times

“The novel gains its resonance from the narrator’s attempt to resolve the elusiveness of his romantic relationships and to find an answer to the mystery that lies at the core of all of us: How should we live our lives?” —David Gendelman, Vanity Fair

"Kelley’s novel is less in the lineage of McInerney and more in the tradition of another facts-obsessed writer from New York: Thomas Pynchon. . . Like Kelley’s novel, Pynchon’s book arrived during a tumultuous time in America, one where intense polarization had damaged the nation’s fundamental sense of the truth. . . . ”—Nick Ripatrazone, The Bulwark

Austin Kelley

is a former New Yorker fact checker. As a journalist he has written for The New York Times, The Nation, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. He has a Ph.D. from Duke University, and now teaches writing at NYU. He lives in Crown Heights and shops at The Word Is Change.

The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, searing account of how the state’s progressive tradition was undone and Wisconsin itself turned into a laboratory for national conservatives bent on remaking the country. Neither sentimental nor despairing, the book tells the story of the systematic dismantling of laws protecting the environment, labor unions, voting rights, and public education through the remarkable battles of ordinary citizens fighting to reclaim Wisconsin’s progressive legacy.

"Masterful." —Jane Mayer, best-selling author of Dark Money

Dan Kaufman

is the author of The Fall of Wisconsin (W.W. Norton). He is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His 2023 New Yorker article "On the Line," about the U.A.W. strike, won a Sidney Award. He has received support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and two fellowships to MacDowell. He is also a musician, composer, and co-founder of Barbez and John & Dan. He grew up in Wisconsin and currently lives in the Catskill Mountains with his wife and son.