Utopia's Debris: Selected Essays

About this book

Gary Indiana is one of Americas leading cultural criticsa public intellectual who has written key essays on every aspect of American culture. Utopias Debris comprises selections of his very best work revealing him to be an enormously acute frequently scabrous and always brilliant observer of the best and worst America has to offer. His writings range from popular culturetrash novels architectural wonders and horrorsto appreciations of the best of modern literature art and cinema. They include his convincing (and highly entertaining) debunking of fashionable conspiracy theories a spirited and contrarian defense of Bill Clintons autobiography a Mencken-like examination of the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the politics of celebrity in what Indiana calls the Age of Contempt. A postmodern Emerson Indiana wields scalpel-sharp wit and a fealty to logic on issues in which all too often irrationalism and emotionalism hold sway. At times rigorously serious at other times whimsical Indianas most conspicuous feature is skepticismhis wildly satirical contempt for conventional wisdom.