Let It Bleed: Essays 1985 -1995 [Paperback]

Gary Indiana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1995

Essays from one of America's most witty and irreverent cultural commentators.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gary Indiana's essays have long been considered the cutting edge of journalism. His pungent commentary and acerbic critiques have appeared in The Village Voice and Artforum and are now collected in Let it Bleed. Indiana has perfected the craft of the personal, cultural essay: informed, honest, catty, precise and witty. These pieces give us a glimpse into the state of culture today: it isn't always pretty. Indiana's intelligence shows though in every piece, and his ability to see through the shame of culture, sex, pretension and politics are refreshing and potent. Let it Bleed enters the culture wars fully armed, and Indiana isn't taking prisoners.

From Publishers Weekly

Indiana's essays on cultural phenomena-everything from a vacation blitzkrieg in Branson, Mo., to books and exhibits and conspiracy theories-have been dropped like napalm Alka-Seltzer into periodicals such as the Village Voice, Interview, ArtForum and Details for years. His reports from the front ring as true as stories your grandma told you a hundred times, except that your grandma wasn't this funny, smart, mean, self-examined or perceptive-nor, in all probability, did she use the same vocabulary. Indiana's vicious descriptions are on the mark; Clinton's New Hampshire primary campaign is likened to a commercial for Preparation H: "The proctologist... has ruled against radical surgery in favor of something smooth and greasy and easy to dissolve in the collective rectum." Yet he splices the easy-mark banter with real curiosity, beautiful prose and a willingness to allow sentiment, such as an unabashed love for Dumbo, to court his skepticism. While more entertaining regarding culture (or the death of it) than news-Euro Disney trumps the trial of the L.A. Four-Indiana's observations provide a smart view not often TelePrompted on the evening news. After a few essays, you start wishing he'd been in your elementary school, shared your early relationships and watched you learn to drive, just so he could tell it all to you again, serving a tastier dish than memory can. A collection this generous does divide into the great and better, but collecting these essays is practically a public service.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852423323
• ISBN-13: 978-1852423322
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,620,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Last of the Tall Trees, June 24, 2009

By 

Richard S. Wilson (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Let It Bleed: Essays 1985 -1995 (Paperback)

I'm constantly telling people to read Gary Indiana. For one thing, no one writes as well as he does. There's a kind of mental courage in all of his work that I cannot describe, but I can say that it has everything to do with translating acute observation into transparent prose. Indiana has applied himself to our civilization's descent into barbarism, which he correctly identifies as our incredible ability to stop thinking, without losing a sense of humor or scale or succumbing to hysteria. When things look grim I like to remind myself that we still have writers as good as Indiana -- one of the last of the tall trees, as Mary McCarthy once said -- well, we still have one writer as good as Indiana. The perfect book to take with you on your trip to Branson, Missouri, Eurodisney, any courtroom in Los Angeles or anywhere, for that matter.

10 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is criticism?, December 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Let It Bleed: Essays 1985 -1995 (Paperback)

If you think that good criticism is based on an ability to make fun of everything, including people's physical shapes (double-chins, etc.), then this is the book for you. Indiana seems to feel that everything is waiting for his poison pen, and scurrilous laughter. Yet he and his writings are very vulnerable targets for enormous satire themselves. On a larger level, Indiana is symptomatic of a time when there's a confusion between genuine criticism and personal attack. In the former, he's lacking; in the latter, he's a good practitioner--too pretentious to be other than good. He seems to want to imitate Gore Vidal, a real expert at both types of criticism. Vidal, at his best, illuminates, and even champions, while Indiana merely fires and poses, embarrassingly.