ATTENTION
Dispatches from a Land of Distraction
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- US$4.99
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A wide-ranging, rule-bending collection of nonfiction from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Netanyahus
“Attention reveals a fresh, vital literary voice as it covers seemingly every imaginable topic relating to modern life.”—Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WIRED
One of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, Joshua Cohen arrives with his first collection of nonfiction, the culmination of two decades of writing and thought about life in the digital age. In essays, memoir, criticism, diary entries, and letters—many appearing here for the first time—Cohen covers the full depth and breadth of modern life: politics, literature, art, music, travel, the media, and psychology, and subjects as diverse as Google, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, fictional animals, Gustav Mahler, Aretha Franklin, John Zorn, landscape photography, fake Caravaggios, Wikipedia, Gertrude Stein, Edward Snowden, Jonathan Franzen, Olympic women’s fencing, Atlantic City casinos, the closing of the Ringling Bros. circus, and Azerbaijan.
Throughout ATTENTION, Cohen directs his sharp gaze at home and abroad, calling upon his extraordinary erudition and unrivaled ability to draw connections between seemingly unlike things to show us how to live without fear in a world overflowing with information. In each piece, he projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his, and a voice as witty, profound, and distinct as any in American letters.
At this crucial juncture in history, ATTENTION is a guide for the perplexed—a handbook for anyone hoping to bring the wisdom of the past into the culture of the future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this debut nonfiction collection, novelist Cohen (Moving Kings) muses on a variety of subjects, including politics, linguistics, history, and religion. Though the opening essay a lament on the shallow state of societal discourse in a world crowded with distractions is a bit stale, Cohen picks up steam in the second selection, an excoriating look at his native Atlantic City's economic decline as an extended metaphor for President Trump's failings, both personal and professional. In book reviews and literary essays, Cohen gives careful consideration to the work of Jonathan Franzen, Gordon Lish, and Thomas Pynchon, among others. A fascinating piece on German-Jewish fencer Helene Mayer, who competed for Germany at the 1936 Olympics, is filled with gems of historical insight, such as how European Jews had long used fencing as a "formal, relatively nonviolent way to respond to anti-Semitic provocations." Cohen can be pretentious or obtuse, particularly in the random diary entries sprinkled throughout: "Avoid imagination," he instructs, since "it is merely the plagiarism of your inexperience or ignorance." At its best, Cohen's work evokes comparisons to Gore Vidal in tone and purview, but the author lacks consistency.
