From the celebrated author of Like a Rolling Stone, Lipstick Traces, Mystery Train,and Invisible Republic, a stunning new book on America and the cultural tributaries that carry its past, present, and future
In The Shape of Things to Come, Greil Marcus untangles the story of America's covenant with itself - and the idealism, horror, eloquence and violence integral to its founding narratives. In a thrilling account that moves back and forth between culture and politics, and with deep dives into the work of a few artists who strikingly dramatize the challenge America poses to each of its citizens - Herman Melville and Raymond Chandler, Philip Roth and David Lynch, Bill Pullman and Sheryl Lee, David Thomas of Pere Ubu and Allen Ginsberg - Marcus captures a story that is constantly being remade and retold, in voices at once paranoid and sardonic, inspiring and terrifying.
