Perkins is a professor of American and English literature and film. In this essay, Perkins examines the theme of fact verses fiction in relation to art in Ephron's play.

In his article on Imaginary Friends for The Nation, David Kaufman asserts that the play captures our attention because of the compelling questions it raises concerning "truth versus mendacity, fact versus fiction." He writes that the argument Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy have over these questions points to what he calls "one of the more troubling developments of the twentieth century," intensified in the twenty-first: "the culture's growing tendency to conflate fact with fiction, both diluting and polluting our reality."

Ephron's exploration of fact versus fiction in the play focuses attention not on the ways culture dilutes and pollutes reality, but on the complexities inherent in the artist's attempt to express reality. In her presentation of the often...