Review of Entrance Pageant

Drew Krewer has an insightful review of my book Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate up here.

... This fear and persecution of “strangeness” is combated through the intrication/blurring of subjecthood. For instance, the character Miss World:

"MISS WORLD

(walks on his tip-toes into the middle of the stage. He is wearing only a basketball jersey. He is 5 years old. He is covered in fine dust. The audience is covered in fine dust. He turns to look at us and the loudspeakers emit the following like semen)"


In this excerpt, masculine and feminine blur—the pairing of “Miss” with the pronoun “he” and also the basketball jersey, which becomes a dress of sorts. Character and audience are also blurred. The parallel phrasing of “He is covered in fine dust” and “The audience is covered in fine dust” make he/audience interchangeable. This intrication continues to build and magnify throughout the book—“I,” “We,” and “You” are blurred, the titles and stage directions evolve into characters themselves, and the distinction between author/reader/performer dissolve.

Göransson’s prose is obsessive, feverish; it feels as if there is simultaneously an overwhelming joy and a keen aversion that animates his descent into the language inhabited by the characters."