About the Book
From the author of Mystery Train and Lipstick Traces, an exhilarating and provocative investigation of the tangle of American identity
"America is a place and a story, made up of exuberance and suspicion, crime and liberation, lynch mobs and escapes; its greatest testaments are made of portents and warnings, biblical allusions that lose all certainty in the American air." It is this story of self-invention and nationhood that Greil Marcus rediscovers, beginning with John Winthrop's invocation of America as a "city on the hill," Lincoln's second inaugural address, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech about his American dream. Listening to these prophetic founding statements, Marcus explores America's promise as a New Jerusalem and the nature of its covenant: first with God, and then with its own citizens. In the nineteenth century, this vision of the nation's story was told in public as part of common discourse, to be fought over in plain speech and flights of gorgeous rhetoric. Since then, Marcus argues, it has become cryptic, a story told more in art than in politics. He traces it across the continent and through time, hearing the tale in the disparate voices of writers, filmmakers, performers, and actors: Philip Roth, David Lynch, David Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Sheryl Lee, and Bill Pullman. In The Shape of Things to Come, the future and the past merge in extraordinary and uncanny ways, and Marcus proves once again that he is our most imaginative and original cultural critic.
About the Author :
Greil Marcus is the author of nine previous books, including The Old, Weird America and Like a Rolling Stone. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Review :
A pirate radio station broadcasting late at night from the heart of the lost republic.--D. D. Guttenplan "The Times Literary Supplement (London) "
His writing is cool, vivid, fixated--and you see what he sees. . . . I will commit myself: this book is brilliant. Frightening, exciting, sickening. It brings you alive as an American.--Devin McKinney "The American Prospect "
Like "Lipstick Traces," this book is an impossible fever dream- conversation, in which Abraham Lincoln, Sleater-Kinney, obscure bluesmen, old punks, characters from "24," Sinclair Lewis, and Martin Luther King Jr. speak to each other on some frequency that only Marcus can transcribe. The cacophony is in us, and in such scary times it's imperative that we listen.--Frances Reade "San Francisco Weekly "
There are wonders on nearly every page, connections made and broken between history and pop culture, and always there is Marcus's gift for summoning up an entire phenomenon in a single sentence.--Ken Tucker "Entertainment Weekly "
Ranging as he does from Monica Lewinsky to David Lynch, Lou Reed back to Philip Roth, the Pixies to Pere Ubu, the great cultural critic Greil Marcus suggests in The Shape of Things to Come that in the USA, artists rather than politicians truly have the measure of the country. Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Horse Latitudes
A pirate radio station broadcasting late at night from the heart of the lost republic. D. D. Guttenplan, The Times Literary Supplement (London)
There are wonders on nearly every page, connections made and broken between history and pop culture, and always there is Marcus's gift for summoning up an entire phenomenon in a single sentence. Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly
Like Lipstick Traces, this book is an impossible fever dream- conversation, in which Abraham Lincoln, Sleater-Kinney, obscure bluesmen, old punks, characters from 24, Sinclair Lewis, and Martin Luther King Jr. speak to each other on some frequency that only Marcus can transcribe. The cacophony is in us, and in such scary times it's imperative that we listen. Frances Reade, San Francisco Weekly
His writing is cool, vivid, fixated--and you see what he sees. . . . I will commit myself: this book is brilliant. Frightening, exciting, sickening. It brings you alive as an American. Devin McKinney, The American Prospect
"
Ranging as he does from Monica Lewinsky to David Lynch, Lou Reed back to Philip Roth, the Pixies to Pere Ubu, the great cultural critic Greil Marcus suggests in "The Shape of Things to Come" that in the USA, artists rather than politicians truly have the measure of the country. "Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Horse Latitudes"
A pirate radio station broadcasting late at night from the heart of the lost republic. D. D. Guttenplan, "The Times Literary Supplement (London)"
There are wonders on nearly every page, connections made and broken between history and pop culture, and always there is Marcus's gift for summoning up an entire phenomenon in a single sentence. Ken Tucker, "Entertainment Weekly"
Like "Lipstick Traces," this book is an impossible fever dream- conversation, in which Abraham Lincoln, Sleater-Kinney, obscure bluesmen, old punks, characters from "24," Sinclair Lewis, and Martin Luther King Jr. speak to each other on some frequency that only Marcus can transcribe. The cacophony is in us, and in such scary times it's imperative that we listen. Frances Reade, "San Francisco Weekly"
His writing is cool, vivid, fixated--and you see what he sees. . . . I will commit myself: this book is brilliant. Frightening, exciting, sickening. It brings you alive as an American. Devin McKinney, "The American Prospect""
"Ranging as he does from Monica Lewinsky to David Lynch, Lou Reed back to Philip Roth, the Pixies to Pere Ubu, the great cultural critic Greil Marcus suggests in "The Shape of Things to Come" that in the USA, artists rather than politicians truly have the measure of the country." --"Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse Latitudes"
"A pirate radio station broadcasting late at night from the heart of the lost republic." --D. D. Guttenplan, "The Times Literary Supplement (London)"
"There are wonders on nearly every page, connections made and broken between history and pop culture, and always there is Marcus's gift for summoning up an entire phenomenon in a single sentence." --Ken Tucker, "Entertainment Weekly"
"Like "Lipstick Traces," this book is an impossible fever dream- conversation, in which Abraham Lincoln, Sleater-Kinney, obscure bluesmen, old punks, characters from "24," Sinclair Lewis, and Martin Luther King Jr. speak to each other on some frequency that only Marcus can transcribe. The cacophony is in us, and in such scary times it's imperative that we listen." --Frances Reade, "San Francisco Weekly"
"His writing is cool, vivid, fixated--and you see what he sees. . . . I will commit myself: this book is brilliant. Frightening, exciting, sickening. It brings you alive as an American." --Devin McKinney, "The American Prospect"
