Decadence

Finalist for the 2026 Hilary Weston Writers Trust Prize for NonfictionThe genre of memoir is bullshit (as I humbly posit). No one actually lives like they are moving along some grand Freytags triangle. Rather, we live within isolated instances, specific struggles and victories, which, when compiled, form a narrative.Richard Kelly KemickInDecadence, Richard Kelly Kemicks accidental memoir of a sort,the author ranges widely through his myriad preoccupations andobsessionsvolleyball, municipal landfills, dogs, high school plays,Christmas villages, loveout of which the shape of a unique sensibilityis revealed. Reminiscent of the three DavidsRakoff, Sedaris, andWallacethese essays accrete into a portrait of a man trying to makesense of a world in which there are no goddamn rules; and yet one inwhich every action has sometimes profound consequences. A book ofintelligence and care and kindness and humour and yearning and theoccasional epiphany, Decadence gathers up from the odds and ends ofliving what makes a modern lifequiet and desperate as it may attimes beworth celebrating.