A memoir of no one in particular
By: Daniel Harris.
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2002
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 239
Subjects: Harris, Daniel, 1957-; Gay men -- United States -- Biography
Genres: Biography.
Description: "Are you as exhausted with the genre of the memoir as everyone says you ought to be? Are you sick and tired of the confession as the Zeitgeist mode of self-presentation? Has the memoir overtaken the novel, becoming too influential in our contemporary literary scene? "Why on earth should we care about anyone's life?" Are you annoyed that no one has done anything up to now to counter the craze?".

"A Memoir of No One in Particular comes to your rescue. Our author approaches his life as if it were a specimen in a biologist's petrie dish. He claims nothing about his life except that it is tenuous and marginal, self-created and self-sustained.

He writes an autobiography of someone who purports to have no particular genius, no familial heritage, no compelling, formative tragedy, no life-affirming lessons, no dead parents, no kid brothers to raise, no restaurant to run, no loony bin to escape, no sexual affair with a parent, no history of (unsolicited) rape, no sex with famous people.".

"Instead, Daniel Harris tells his own personal history as a gay white male by probing the banalities of daily living and the unexplored territories of the commonplace. He revels in the minutiae and mundane rituals of modern daily life: how he likes to warm up soup from a can for dinner and wear spandex to the gym and dresses and cleans and poops and fucks.

Equal parts spoof, satire, essay, literary criticism and even memoir, this aesthetic experiment in self-consciousness will dare you to love it."--BOOK JACKET.