Where Is the Light Coming from: Essays on Art and Regular People

By Dan Kois

Cultural critic and novelist Dan Kois explores the way art, literature, music, and theater make themselves relevant to all sorts of--as artists call them--"regular people" postal workers writing their lives with the help of a legendary cartoonist; angry socialites protesting a tacky statue; readers falling in love with America's cheesiest poet; librarians being asked to defend a modernist masterpiece that everyone knows is very dirty. Interspersed with Kois's keen-eyed reporting are moving, funny personal narratives illustrating the rewards of staying alert to the possibilities of art: a life-changing decision based on a hopeless crush on a regional theater actress; a clarifying encounter with a grumpy traveler at an Italian hotel; and a previously unpublished story from inside a Kentucky memory-care facility, where Kois helps a MacArthur Fellow conjure an astonishing theater production starring dementia patients. Written with sharp critical insight and disarming honesty, these eleven essays offer a fresh angle on the age-old question of how art makes an impact on the world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1478035145
• ISBN13: 9781478035145
• Release Date: March 2027
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 9.0"