The Disappointment Artist: Essays - Paperback

by Jonathan Lethem (Author)

In a volume he describes as "a series of covert and not-so-covert autobiographical pieces," Jonathan Lethem explores the nature of cultural obsession--from western films and comic books, to the music of Pink Floyd and the New York City subway. Along the way, he shows how each of these "voyages out from himself" has led him to the source of his beginnings as a writer. The Disappointment Artist is a series of windows onto the collisions of art, landscape, and personal history that formed Lethem's richly imaginative, searingly honest perspective on life. A touching, deeply perceptive portrait of a writer in the making.

Front Jacket

In a volume he describes as "a series of covert and no-so-covert autobiographical pieces," Jonathan Lethem explores the nature of cultural obsession--in his case, with examples as diverse as western films, comic books, the music of Talking Heads and Pink Floyd, and the New York City subway. Along the way, he shows how each of these "voyages out from himself" have led him home--home to his father's life as a painter, and to the source of his beginnings as a writer. THE DISAPPOINTMENT ARTIST is a series of windows onto the collisions of art, landscape, and personal history that formed Lethem's richly imaginative, searingly honest perspective on life as a human creature in the jungle of culture at the end of the twentieth century.
From a confession of the sadness of a "Star Wars nerd" to an investigation into the legacy of a would-be literary titan, Lethem illuminates the process by which a child invents himself as a writer, and as a human being, through a series of approaches to the culture around him. In "The Disappointment Artist," a letter from his aunt, a children's book author, spurs a meditation on the value of writing workshops, and the uncomfortable fraternity of writers. In "Defending "The Searchers" Lethem explains how a passion for the classic John Wayne Western became occasion for a series of minor humiliations. In "Identifying with Your Parents," an excavation of childhood love for superhero comics expands to cover a whole range of nostalgia for a previous generation's cultural artifacts. And "13/1977/21," which begins by recounting the summer he saw "Star Wars twenty-one times, "slipping past ushers who'd begun to recognize me . . . occult as a porn customer," becomesa meditation on the sorrow and solace of the solitary movie-goer.
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THE DISAPPOINTMENT ARTIST confirms Lethem's unique ability to illuminate the way life, his and ours, can be read between the lines of art and culture.

Author Biography

Jonathan Lethem is the author of six novels, including The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of two short story collections, Men and Cartoons and The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye, and the editor of The Vintage Book of Amnesia. His essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Granta, and Harper's. He lives in Brooklyn and Maine.