"Memoir is dead. Long live the anti-memoir, built from scraps."

In this week's New York Times Book Review, David Shields (author most recently of Reality Hunger) discusses Ander Monson's new book Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir. It's hard to quote from the article--I really believe the Times leads seminars in how to write an unblurbable review for all its writers--so you'll have to trust me that it's good. The gist of it is that memoir is ripe for a rethinking, and that Ander Monson is very good at exploding the form. Or, as Shields not-so-succinctly puts it: "he turns the banality of nonfiction inside out and thereby makes nonfiction a staging area to investigate claims of fact and truth, an extremely rich theater for exploring the most serious ontological questions."

Ander Monson brings his ontological roadshow to Magers & Quinn this summer. He'll be here Tuesday, June 15, at 7:30pm. Details are here.--David E