Utopia's Debris: Selected Essays by Gary Indiana

From the Publisher

Gary Indiana is one of America’s leading cultural critics—a public intellectual who has written key essays on every aspect of American culture. Utopia’s 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 culture—trash novels, architectural wonders and horrors—to 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 Clinton’s 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, Indiana’s most conspicuous feature is skepticism—his wildly satirical contempt for conventional wisdom.

Thomas A. Karel - Library Journal

While Indiana might not be as well known as his namesake city, his reputation is growing. In a career spanning 25 years he has published 32 books and has been described as a "postmodern Emerson." It is hard to pin him down and fit him into one area of specialization. As a member of a new generation of public intellectuals, he brings a fresh and unpredictable response to a variety of topics: art, film, literature, politics, and social issues. This new work is a sequel, of sorts, to Let It Bleed: Essays, 1985-1995 and contains articles published since 1996 in the London Review of Books, Artforum, and the Village Voice, among others. Highlights from these pieces include appreciations of Susan Sontag and the writer/director Gavin Lambert, a dissection of Arnold Schwarzenegger's rise to power, and a long reflection on Wittgenstein's house. He writes about the Black Dahlia case in Los Angeles and tips his hat to the novel Valley of the Dolls. He is outraged by Robert McNamara's lack of remorse over the Vietnam War yet casts a sympathetic eye on Leni Riefenstahl's career. Indiana provides a true service in championing lesser-known writers and artists as well, such as Mary Woronov, Curzio Malaparte, Clive Piercy, and Barbara Kruger. An excellent introduction to the work of a unique talent; recommended for academic and large public libraries.

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