Wayne Koestenbaum considers the meaning of humiliation in this eloquent work of cultural critique and personal reflectionThe lives of people both famous and obscure are filled with scarlet-letter moments when theirdirty laundry sees daylight In these moments we not only witness the reversibility of success of prominence but also come to visceral terms with our own vulnerable selves We cant stop watching the scene of shame identifying with it and absorbing its nearness and relishing our imagined immunity from its stain even as we acknowledge the universal embarrassing predicamentof living in our own bodies With an unusual disarming blend of autobiography and cultural commentary noted poet and critic Wayne Koestenbaum takes us through a spectrum of mortifying circumstancesin history literature art current events music film and his own life His generous disclosures and brilliant observations go beyond prurience tocreate a poetics of abasement Inventive poignant erudite and playful Humiliation plunges into one of the most disquieting of human experiences with reflections at once emboldening and humane.
