Fact Check Fail: The Atlantic

Here's a scan of a page from the fiction issue of The Atlantic. The stories are okay, only one real standout (the one called Furlough) and the Rick Bass one was interesting, but the Tim O'Brien essay is quite good. Anyway, here's the error, available to you on magazine racks right now:

I'm sure this news comes as as a shock to Junot Diaz, who actually won the Pulitzer in 2008 for The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And I'm sure they probably meant the 2009 Pulitzer, but that was won by Elizabeth Strout for her book Olive Kitteridge. (O'Neill was a finalist for neither.)

Joseph O'Neill and his novel Netherland won the Pen/Faulkner award for 2009. Duh. As a sidebar, I do find it interesting that O'Neill has been much, much more visible than Strout, so it's almost like her Pulitzer win was just shrugged off and the literary kingmakers decided to laude O'Neill more, like they wished he would have won instead. Oh well. What's kind of funny, in this Atlantic, a few pages after this mistake, is an advertisement that includes Joseph O'Neill's boook which shows his Pen/Faulkner award, but not the Pulitzer.

Oh, Atlantic, better wash that egg off your face. I know you must be shamed.

viva el mustache

ps...BMS pending...I got plenty of time today.