Titled ‘“Stupid, Inarticulate, Uninteresting”. Photorealism and the Nouveau Roman’ (the quotation comes from Chuck Close) the article is concerned with the relationship between the French literary movement of the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s with American Photrealist painting. The Nouveau Roman was widely read and known about in the USA from the mid 1960s onwards, taught in American University course on French literature, written about extensively in American newspapers and journals and mediated through the writing of the eminent critic Susan Sontag. The article looks at the overlaps in approaches to realism, a common use of the deadpan writing and painting, and the use of apparently accurate and factual description. The article presents a fresh view on a movement that for some time has been ignored. The catalogue, Rivaling Reality: 60 Years of Photorealism has been published to accompany an exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany.