First published 2018
David Shields tackles the fundamental question of whether we can truly know another person. His seventy-plus essays resist easy categorization as either miscellany or memoir. Instead, they form a rigorous examination of otherness that spans sexual desire, information overload, political figures, and pop culture icons. Shields writes about George W. Bush and Kurt Cobain, women's eyeglasses and Greek tragedy, Howard Cosell and Bill Murray. He explores the comedy found in high school journalism alongside the pain of first love. Each piece maintains sharp focus on how multiple perspectives create an overwhelming tangle of human information. The collection grapples with whether art can bridge the gaps between people or if those spaces remain forever unbridgeable. Shields offers readers both intellectual stimulation and emotional impact as he investigates how we live through others and what that means for human connection.
Genres: essays, literary-fiction, american-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Period: 21st-century
400 pages · Paperback · Vintage