Between Panic and Desire Contributor(s): Moore, Dinty W. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0803229828 ISBN-13: 9780803229822 Publisher: Bison Books OUR PRICE: $13.46 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: March 2010 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs - Social Science | Essays - Biography & Autobiography | Educators |
Dewey: B |
Series: American Lives (University of Nebraska) |
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.4" W x 8.4" (0.45 lbs) 168 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 1950-1999 - Chronological Period - 21st Century |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description:
"Insouciant" and "irreverent" are the sort of words that come up in reviews of Dinty W. Moore's books--and, invariably, "hilarious." Between Panic and Desire, named after two towns in Pennsylvania, finds Moore at the top of his astutely funny form. A book that could be named after one of its chapters, "A Post-Nixon, Post-panic, Post-modern, Post-mortem," this collection is an unconventional memoir of one man and his culture, which also happens to be our own. Blending narrative and quizzes, memory and numerology, and imagined interviews and conversations with dead presidents on TV, the book dizzily documents the disorienting experience of growing up in a postmodern world. Here we see how the major events in the author's early life--the Kennedy assassination, Nixon's resignation, watching Father Knows Best, and dropping acid atop the World Trade Center, to name a few--shaped the way he sees events both global and personal today. More to the point, we see how these events shaped, and possibly even distorted, today's world for all of us who spent our formative years in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. A curious meditation on family and bereavement, longing and fear, self-loathing and desire, Between Panic and Desire unfolds in kaleidoscopic forms--a coroner's report, a TV movie script, a Zen koan--aptly reflecting the emergence of a fractured virtual America. Dinty W. Moore is a professor of English at Ohio University and the author of several books, including Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals, The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction, and The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still. |