Keynote
An astounding work of doubles by Albert Goldbarth, “a dazzling virtuoso who can break your heart” (Joyce Carol Oates)
Book Title
The Adventures of Form and Content
Subtitle
Essays
Cover Image
- “Calls to mind that old tin spinning toy that radiates sparks when you push the bottom with your thumb: kinetic, tactile, dazzling, fun.”—The New York Times Book Review
Body
Albert Goldbarth’s first book of essays in a decade, The Adventures of Form and Content, is about the mysteries of dualities, the selves we all carry inside, the multiverses that we are. This collection takes its shape from the ACE Doubles format of the 1950s: turn this book one way, and read about the checkered history of those sci-fi and pulp fictions, or about the erotic poetry of Catullus and the gravelly songs of Springsteen, or about the high gods and the low-down blues, a city of the holy and of the sinful; turn this book the other way, and read about prehistoric cave artists and NASA astronauts, or about illness and health, or about the discovery of planets and the discovery of oneself inside an essay, or about soul ships and space ships, the dead and the living; or turn the book any way you want, and this book becomes an adventure of author and reader, form and content.
Goldbarth’s essays have pioneered and inspired new forms of nonfiction writing for thirty years. Robert Atwan, series editor for The Best American Essays, praises his work by stating, “These essays are a whole new breed. . . . Goldbarth has spliced strands of the old genre with a powerful new genre—and the results are miraculous.” The Adventures of Form and Content is a new, ingenious work of hilarity and humanity that reminds us of the capabilities and impossibilities of art.
Goldbarth’s essays have pioneered and inspired new forms of nonfiction writing for thirty years. Robert Atwan, series editor for The Best American Essays, praises his work by stating, “These essays are a whole new breed. . . . Goldbarth has spliced strands of the old genre with a powerful new genre—and the results are miraculous.” The Adventures of Form and Content is a new, ingenious work of hilarity and humanity that reminds us of the capabilities and impossibilities of art.
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About the Author
Credit: Michael Pointer
Praise
- “Inventive. . . .Goldbarth covers subjects as varied as Catullus, science fiction, and the life of a professional escort.”—The New Yorker
- “This essay collection is a thoughtful, poetic and remarkably human reflection on our many dualities. . . . Thanks to Goldbarth’s unlikely pairings, the ordinary becomes extraordinary; the inaccessible, accessible. . . . Reading a Goldbarth essay is like watching a fine magician at work. . . . A master certainly of both content and form, Goldbarth will assuredly have readers returning to these essays again and again, not only to delight in their material, but to search for the sleight of hand, the trick, the answer to the question: how did he do that?”—The Gazette (Cedar Rapids)
- “After decades of practicing his craft, [Albert Goldbarth] continues to refine it. . . . The lines become more eloquent, succinct; the voice continues to be a revelation. . . . The clicks of [Goldbarth’s] typewriter keys transport us through time, from the days of the dime store novel, the schetel, and no-budget sci-fi to the now; what was true then is true now: We must find the good in people even when we believe only their darkest tendencies will prevail.”—Spectrum Culture
- “A nostalgic, rueful, and sometimes sweetly funny collection.”—Kirkus Reviews
