Adam Gnade’s ‘Wild Horse Shit’ Encourages Joyful Resistance
Cult novelist Adam Gnade’s latest, Wild Horse Shit, wrestles with the state of the world, encouraging untamed joy in the face of fascism.
autofiction
Michael Bracewell’s Pop Fantasy ‘The Smiths: A Novella’ Is a Stunning Evocation
Michael Bracewell’s latest novella is a Proustian, circuitous meditation on the 1980s zeitgeist, shaped by personal recollections of the Smiths.
Edmund White’s Longing for Being and Nothingness
The sexual world in Edmund White’s The Beautiful Room Is Empty expresses the tension between being and nothingness: the body insists on presence, yet the self remains elusive.
C. D. Rose’s ‘Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea’ Plays Familiar Games with Time
Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea plays with postmodernism, autofiction, philosophy, and a short story canon peopled by writers from Augustine to Raymond Carver.
McKenzie Wark’s ‘Raving’ and the Need to Dissociate from the Body and Self
McKenzie Wark’s understanding of ravespace as a constructed situation in nonlinear ketamine-time comports with my experience raving on weekends as a freshman in college.
Figuring It Out with “Reverse Dracula”, Wayne Koestenbaum
Figuring out some arguments by exegesis: a witty conversation with author, artist, and academic, Wayne Koestenbaum.