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Author:   Patrick Madden
Publisher:   University of Nebraska Press
Imprint:   University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:  

9781496202444

ISBN 10:   1496202449
Pages:   186
Publication Date:   01 April 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

/disparate/     Writer Michael Martone’s Leftover Water: Imbibe literary genius (dozens of authors) in one swig!     Nostalgia (feat. Lawrence Sutin)     Insomnia (feat. Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas)     Unpredictable Essays     Laughter (feat. Jericho Parms)     Order     Memorizing the Lyrics     Repast     Happiness (feat. Amy Leach)      Memory     Alfonsina y el Mar     Mea Culpa     Expectations (feat. Desirae Matherly)      Freewill (feat. Joe Oestreich)      In Step with . . . Montaigne (feat. David Lazar)      Timing     Inertia     Thumbs (feat. Elena Passarello & Wendy S. Walters)     Smells (feat. Stephen Haynie)     The Proverbial __________     Poetry     Old Time Rock and Roll (feat. Michael Martone)     The Arrogance of Style     Distance (feat. Joni Tevis)     Beat on the Brat     Against the Wind     Pangram Haiku  Plums (feat. Matthew Gavin Frank)      Solstice     Listening (feat. Mary Cappello)       

Reviews

You cannot help but read Madden's essays and grin at his deadpan maniacal love for detail and life and kids and anecdotes and wrinkles in the fabric of nominal reality. The guy is obsessed with nominal reality and all the shimmers and windows in it. A terrific essayist, and even better, wholly and utterly unique-there really isn't an essayist today who writes like this, I think, and for all Madden's worshipping of Montaigne, Madden's more interesting and absorbing and funny. Heresy! But it's true. -the late Brian Doyle, author of One Long River of Song -- Brian Doyle Disparates is a generous romp of a book. Patrick Madden's essays open windows onto glee and silliness as well as grief and love. In forms as wide-ranging as Balderdash, wordsearch, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, and James Brady's bygone Parade feature In Step With..., Madden shows us again, as in his previous books, that the daily stuff of life sings out for examination and play. Read with an eye peeled for: Dr. Demento, the Jackalope, pahoehoe lava, and the important reminder that 'Laughter is a taste of your own medicine'. 'Whenever I fix/ my quips to the jazzy world,/ I come back agape,' he writes. After reading Disparates, I feel the same: changed, alive to surprise, comforted, dazzled. -Joni Tevis, author of The World Is on Fire -- Joni Tevis You're in for a treat picking up Pat Madden's Disparates, a book that doubles down so hard on its disparity it ends up holding together in surprising ways. Madden is maniacal in his fidelity to found forms (eBay auction listing, OED definition, literary translation, wordfind puzzle, etc.) and seemingly bad ideas (composing an essay by machine-learned predictive text, writing pangram haiku, discussing the band Rush), but due to his prodigious enthusiasm and intelligence he lands more jumps than not. My favorite feature of Disparates seems at first like the book's worst idea: most of these essays feature other writers in guest spots. The overall effect is that of a perforated, collaborative self, manifesting exactly the kind of generosity and playfulness we could use a lot more of in literary nonfiction. -Ander Monson, author of I Will Take the Answer -- Ander Monson Patrick Madden has made a career championing the essay-its traditions, its tenets, and its opportunities. In this, his third collection, Madden masterfully demonstrates a crucial (and often overlooked) element of the form-raucous play-in each smart, active piece. Disparates plays constantly: with shape, with subject, with language; it even plays well with others in several lively collaborations. I savored this collection over several days like it was a sampler of fine candy...and then I found twenty bucks. -Elena Passarello, author of Animals Strike Curious Poses -- Elena Passarello

Author Information

Patrick Madden is a professor at Brigham Young University. He is the author of the award-winning Sublime Physick: Essays (Nebraska, 2016) and Quotidiana: Essays (Nebraska, 2010), and coeditor, with David Lazar, of After Montaigne: Contemporary Essayists Cover the Essays. His essays have appeared in a variety of periodicals as well as in The Best Creative Nonfiction and The Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. Visit Madden’s website at quotidiana.org.  

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