Resentment: A Comedy

by Gary Indiana

Book Overview

In a novel capturing an era that seems at once familiar and grotesque, a New York writer lands in Los Angeles in 1994.

Originally published in 1997, Resentment was the first in Gary Indiana's now-classic trilogy (followed in 1999 by Three Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story and in 2003 by Depraved Indifference) chronicling the more-or-less permanent state of "depraved indifference" that characterized American...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584351721
• ISBN13: 9781584351726
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: Semiotext(e)
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Ultrafantabulous!

Like some 19th century Russian, Indiana grapples with BIG issues of morality and the human condition. In his epic vision, Los Angeles comes across like Mortville, the nightmare town from John Waters' masterpiece Desperate Living. The hapless characters, each rendered frighteningly believable by witty, insightful prose, are all on collision courses with each other's wanton perversity and unchecked megalomania. Wickedly funny and unsentimental, Indiana is never unempathetic as he unflinchingly depicts the car crash of contemporary society. Can't we all get along? Perhaps not.

Resentment

... Indiana is one of the best, most incisive writers inAmerica. He's funny, ferociously angry, incredibly conversant, andhis books--including Resentment--put a frame around our culture's insanity. He's not only highly entertaining-he's necessary.

acid-bath humour & ant-farm energy

if you have a compulsion to back check previous works, what you have here is the fictive scaffolding put in place by the same keen eye that finally elucidated the horrific connection between Walt Disney characters & the imagery of Francis Bacon (...we all felt it, we just hadn't thought about it...). there's little mercy for reader or character, in fact some episodes seem implanted like a surprise bowl of insects to make you squirm- but West Coasters will surely appreciate allusions to the beneath-the-surface activities of the OTO & Scientologists, the walk on cameos by Kathy Acker (in disguise, in memoriam?), psychokillers and annoying movie stars- all the SoCal fixtures a la Pynchon's 'Lot 49' or Stephen Wright's 'Going Native' are inflated to new lunatic proportions by Indiana's careening lingo.

Damning yet breezy indictment of our times

Indiana's best book yet is a torrent of words which, for all its seeming randomness, is never off target. The gimmick here is a disguised retelling of the Menendez trial, but there's a lot more going on than that. In the end, Resentment is one of the most hateful, loving, and accurate portraits of Los Angeles.