Caleb Powell always wanted to become an artist, but he overcommitted to life; his former professor David Shields always wanted to become a human being, but he overcommitted to art. The stay-at-home dad (three young girls) and the workaholic writer (18 books) head to the woods to spend four days together in a cabin, arguing life vs. art.

I THINK YOU'RE TOTALLY WRONG is an impassioned, funny, probing, fiercely inconclusive, nearly-to-the-death debate. Shields and Powell talk about everything --- marriage, family, sports, sex, happiness, drugs, death, betrayal, and (of course) writers and writing --- in the name of exploring and debating their central question: the lived life versus the examined life. There are no teachers or students here, no interviewers or interviewees, no masters of the universe --- only a chasm of uncertainty, in a dialogue that remains dazzlingly provocative and entertaining from start to finish.

James Franco’s film adaptation of I THINK YOU'RE TOTALLY WRONG, starring the authors, premiered in 2015.