Wayne Koestenbaum has been described as “an impossible lovechild from a late-night, drunken three-way between Joan Didion, Roland Barthes, and Susan Sontag” (Bidoun). In My 1980s and Other Essays, a collection of extravagant range and style, he rises to the challenge of that improbable description. A series of impassioned personal manifestos, the book also wrestles with a series of major cultural figures who are the author’s own touchstones, from, Roberto Bolaño to Cindy Sherman to Brigitte Bardot. It amounts to a kind of intellectual autobiography that culminates in a string of passionate calls to creativity; arguments in favor of detail and nuance; a defense of pleasure, hunger, and desire in culture and experience. Koestenbaum will be on hand to read, discuss, and sign his book at Greenlight.

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