SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A fact checker at a respected magazine didn't expect the "Mandeville/Green" piece about a farmers market in New York City, 2004, to be an oozer, as he puts it. It's a food piece, the unnamed narrator narrates. It's not going to kill anyone. But the fact checker reads that a tomato grower named Sylvia refers to nefarious business at the market. He finds Sylvia to ask what she means, and that's when the quest for real facts begins. "The Fact Checker" is the first novel from Austin Kelley - a former New Yorker magazine fact checker, in fact. He joins us from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
AUSTIN KELLEY: Thank you.
SIMON: You'll be fact-checking this interview, won't you?
KELLEY: (Laughter) Yeah, I hope not.
SIMON: And an oozer?
KELLEY: Yeah. An oozer - I would say one that you're not quite sure where things are going or what's solid and what's not.
SIMON: I'm going to use that a lot from now on. Tell us a little more about how the story unfolds. There is something that gets kind of handed to him, isn't there?
KELLEY: Well, he has this story. And it's a story, as you said, he doesn't expect to be a big deal 'cause it's a farmers market story, and he's usually busy working on things that are about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. So this is a - sort of a lighthearted piece. But when he gets to this one line that he feels is a negative portrayal of the farmers market, he suddenly gets kind of fixated on that. And when he meets Sylvia, this farmer who supposedly said those negative things, he gets fixated on her. Then, when she disappears and doesn't really give him any explanation, the rest is trying to find out what really happened to her.
SIMON: Sylvia grows - is it Rampoho tomatoes? How do we pronounce that?
KELLEY: Ramapo, I think, is the way I pronounce it in my head. And I believe that's what they said at Rutgers, where those tomatoes were actually developed originally.
SIMON: As I found out because...
KELLEY: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...I thought, oh, he made this up (laughter). But, no, it was developed at Rutgers. That's an actual New Jersey...
KELLEY: Yeah.
SIMON: ...Tomato, isn't it?
KELLEY: Yeah. And every year, they have - Rutgers has a tomato festival. I like to go. I've gone a couple of times.
SIMON: I have to ask - did you ever do anything remotely like this as a fact checker at the New Yorker?
KELLEY: No.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLEY: Not really. I mean, there are some kernels of truth in there - little bits and pieces from the real experience of checking facts, which I hope come across to the reader.
SIMON: Oh, yeah. But what makes the fact checker suspect that the nefarious business at this farmers market isn't just buying tomatoes at Costco and reselling them for three times the price?
KELLEY: This fact checker, this narrator, is particularly skeptical, essentially. So at one point in the novel, he thinks maybe there's a - drug sales going on at the farmers market, or something is being sold that shouldn't be. I thought the farmers market was kind of an interesting setting because we think of that food as being so pure, and so straight from the Earth, that it would be interesting to have a character be even skeptical of that.
SIMON: The fact checker and Sylvia meet. They drink. They dine. They become involved.
KELLEY: Yeah. I think that that confusion between whether or not this character is sort of interested in this woman and curious about her, or whether he's really trying to find the heart of the truth in the story, is something that he's not quite sure about and that he kind of gets mixed up about, as well. And I think - I think it's both. He wants to know Sylvia better, and he's very idealistic. And he sees something idealistic about this tomato farmer, and he's interested in her. So he's kind of pursuing both, and they get compounded, I guess.
SIMON: Could I get you to read from your novel the note that Sylvia leaves on the fact checker's pillow?
KELLEY: Sure.
(Reading) The note said, dear fact checker. Sorry to leave so early, but I have to take care of some things. You were right about that. Anyway, thanks. I'll call you in a few days. XO, Sylvia. P.S. Yes - let's do it.
SIMON: Let's do what?
KELLEY: (Laughter) Yes, let's do what? I mean, that's the big question that I think he wants to pursue at the end. And he won't - he doesn't know if - what exactly she meant by that.
SIMON: Yeah. Can you share with us a fact that you checked years ago at The New Yorker that still kind of astounds you?
KELLEY: Well, right in the very beginning of the novel, I mention talking to Shaquille O'Neal's girlfriend.
SIMON: Yes.
KELLEY: And this came from a real profile of Shaquille O'Neal.
SIMON: About the tattoos, as I recall.
KELLEY: Yeah.
SIMON: Yeah.
KELLEY: She had to take his shirt off to check the spelling of the tattoo that was right next to his navel, which I think was, lil warrior. And I remember it very well 'cause I could hear him kind of snickering in the background. And meanwhile, she was checking not only the spelling but the punctuation. What was capital? What was lowercase? So we were thorough.
SIMON: I bet that's memorable for him, too.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: Are fact checkers, as we learn from this one, detectives at heart?
KELLEY: Yeah. I think when I worked as a fact checker, I always thought there was a little bit of detective work that you would do every day, and I always thought that that was an interesting and fun part of it. I thought the fact checker was kind of a funny version of the classic detective - a little bit more nerdy.
SIMON: Is this fact checker an alter ego for you?
KELLEY: (Laughter) I hope not, but probably (laughter). I mean, there are many ridiculous things about him and silly lapses. I hope I don't have those, but probably I do. We never know.
SIMON: Austin Kelley - his new novel, "The Fact Checker." Thank you so much for being with us.
KELLEY: Thank you so much. What a pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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