Description
Book SynopsisThe story of a new style of artand a new way of lifein postwar America: confessionalism.
What do midcentury confessional poets have in common with today's reality TV stars? They share an inexplicable urge to make their lives an open book, and also a sense that this book can never be finished. Christopher Grobe argues that, in postwar America, artists like these forged a new way of being in the world. Identity became a kind of workalways ongoing, never completeto be performed on the public stage.
The Art of Confession tells the history of this cultural shift and of the movement it created in American art: confessionalism. Like realism or romanticism, confessionalism began in one art form, but soon pervaded them all: poetry and comedy in the 1950s and '60s, performance art in the '70s, theater in the '80s, television in the '90s, and online video and social media in the 2000s. Everywhere confessionalism went, it stood against autobiography, the art of the closed boo
Trade Review
Grobe helps uncover continuities between Robert Lowell and reality television, revealing that all along confession has been a matter of art as much as truth. … The Art of Confession is itself an impressive performance, written with an eloquence and uncommon verve. -- Los Angeles Review of Books
Grobetraces the history and evolution of modern American confessional art in this impressive and wide-ranging debut. An engrossing . . . work of literary scholarship for the 21st century. * Publishers Weekly *
A feeling that Grobe is working to piece things together, and take them apart, to present them to the reader for further contemplation. . . . resonates strongly throughout the book. Seeing the author arrive at his conclusions, rather than present them as a fait accompli, offers a compelling act of reading. * Popmatters *
Grobe explores 'the performance of self' in as multifarious a fashion as befits the topic and with just the right balance of theoretical acumen, playfulness, tongue-in-cheek observations, and historical, literary, political, and cultural accuracy. * STARRED Library Journal *
A cogent and often entertaining demonstration of what the confessional self looks like as it unfolds over his subjects’ cross-media careers during decades rife with cultural and political significance. -- Biography
I must confess: I loveThe Art of Confession. In clear and stylish prose, with gusto and flourish, andthrough original arguments about the compulsion to confess and the compulsion to perform, Grobe has produced a stunning book. Broadly engaged, yet sharply focused, this workis cultural criticism of the highest standard. -- Nick Salvato,author of Obstruction
