Humiliation

'One of my favorite recent books: psychologically astute, verbally pyrotechnic, bottomlessly provocative, surprisingly funny, and immensely sad. An extraordinary meditation on nothing less than – I don't know how else to say it – the human condition.’

-- David Shields

‘Wayne Koestenbaum is Agony Uncle to your humiliating experiences in these short films dubbed “the mother of all book trailers”.’

* New York Observer *

‘The funniest, smartest, most heart breaking yet powerful book I've read in a long time.’

-- John Waters

‘Poet, critic, artist and sometime-musician, Koestenbaum is one of those writers we’d love to hate – damn the man’s prolificacy! – but whose particular combination of erudition, insight, tenderness and scatological humour makes it impossible not to want to snatch up his books and press them into other people’s hands, exhorting them to read this, immediately . . .Style-wise, this is Brian Dillon’s Essayism crossed with David Sedaris . . . it’s learned, with a breath-taking frame of reference, but also witty and self-effacing, revelling in life’s smuttiness and fuck-ups . . . a mesmerising read.'

-- Valerie O’Riordan * Bookmunch *

‘An eloquent, fearless and frequently hilarious essay on the “whimpering beast inside each of us”, and on the urge to exploit its vulnerability.’ 

-- Brian Dillon * Guardi