Shame

“At a time when the novel seems caught between the twin pillars of autofiction and agitprop, Grant Maierhofer’s Shame brings us something new. Working in the tradition of Beckett, or Bernhard, Maierhofer cuts his self-loathing with tenderness, with melancholy, with deadpan wit and vulnerability. The result is a book that feels unlike any other I can think of: supple, kaleidoscopic, at once intimate and vast. A novel that seems—somehow—practically infinite.”—Matthew Specktor, author of American Dream Machine and Always Crashing in the Same Car“It’s like Kafka’s cockroach. It’s like Stephen Daedalus yammering metaphysics. It’s like Robert Lowell’s ill spirit sobbing. It’s like Henry Miller stumble drunk. It’s like Kerouac in Mexico, wild, undisciplined, pure, the crazier the better. Thus the sordid erudition and crazy wisdom of Grant Maierhofer’s Shame.”—Curtis White, author of Living in a World That Can't Be Fixed“Naked, wry, obsessed with loss, fear, existential shock before our hyperbolic now, Grant Maierhofer’s Shame is a stunning innovative serpent ever in the act of swallowing its own wounded, hyperaware tail and tale, reminding us on every page that nonfiction is nothing if not a troubled and troubling suburb of fiction where the self can honestly be told only in a series of jittery approximations.”—Lance Olsen, author of Skin Elegies“Alternately raw, fiery, poetic, and sentimental, the author’s take can . . . show levity, as when describing tender moments with his wife . . . when Maierhofer’s cathartic ruminations hit, they hit hard.”—Publisher’s Weekly