About the book

In this truly one-of-a-kind book, the author/narrator--a representative, in extremis, of contemporary American obsession with beauty, celebrity, transmitted image--finds himself suspended, fascinated, in the remoteness of our wall-to-wall mediascape. It is a remoteness that both perplexes and enthralls him. Through dazzling sleight of hand in which the public becomes private and the private becomes public, the entire book-clicking from confession to family-album photograph to family chronicle to sexual fantasy to pseudo-scholarly footnote to reportage to personal essay to stand-up comedy to cultural criticism to literary criticism to film criticism to prose-poem to litany to outtake-becomes both an anatomy of American culture and a searing self-portrait.

Praise

“A brilliant mix of scrapbook, cultural criticism, autobiography, travelogue, and found poetry. . . .There are pages of bold pronouncements, many of which are lacerating in their acuity.” —Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Remote should . . . be seen as one of the definitive texts of the 1990s—a trim, elegant, nonfiction answer to Infinite Jest . . . a mordant meditation on the odd way we live now.” —A. O. Scott, Newsday