The Very Last Interview

In the spirit of his highly acclaimed and influential book Reality Hunger,DavidShieldshas composed a mordantly funny, relentlessly self-questioning self-portrait based on questions that interviewers have asked him over forty years.David Shields decided to gather every interview hes ever given, going back nearly forty years. If it was on the radio or TV or a podcast, he transcribed it. He wasnt sure what he was looking for, but he knew he wasnt interested in any of his own answers. The questions interested himapproximately 2,700, which he condensed and collated to form twenty-two chapters focused on such subjects as Process, Childhood, Failure, Capitalism, Suicide, and Comedy. Then, according to Shields, the real work began: rewriting and editing and remixing the questions and finding a through-line.The result is a lacerating self-demolition in which the authorin this case, a...