This article discusses how Mary Curran-Hackett, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cincinnati in the English Literature and Composition and Rhetoric Departments, was determined to hook her students on reading. She wanted to find a topic on which every single student would undoubtedly have an opinion, and if not a preconceived notion, at least an iota of the impact of such a topic. She chose the topic of war, and placed "What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng," the now-controversial true story that is called fiction, on the syllabus. Although a seemingly straightforward survival and redemption tale of a young, innocent "Lost Boy" trapped in the Sudanese civil war, it revealed itself as truly the great American novel, and it served as a launching pad for numerous topics in the college classroom.