{"product_id":"the-very-last-interview-9781681376424","title":"The Very Last Interview","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn the spirit of his highly acclaimed and influential book \u003ci\u003eReality Hunger\u003c\/i\u003e, David Shields has composed a mordantly funny, relentlessly self-questioning self-portrait based on questions that interviewers have asked him over forty years.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDavid Shields decided to gather every interview he's ever given, going back nearly forty years. If it was on the radio or TV or a podcast, he transcribed it. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he knew he wasn't interested in any of his own answers. The questions interested him--approximately 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.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe result is a lacerating self-demolition in which the author--in this case, a late-middle-aged white man--is strangely, thrillingly absent. As Chuck Klosterman says, \"\u003ci\u003eThe Very Last Interview\u003c\/i\u003e is David Shields doing what he has done dazzlingly for the past twenty-five years: interrogating his own intellectual experience by changing the meaning of what seems both obviously straightforward and obviously wrong.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eShields's new book is a sequel of sorts to his seminal \u003ci\u003eReality Hunger: A Manifesto\u003c\/i\u003e, which \u003ci\u003eLiterary Hub \u003c\/i\u003erecently named one of the most important books of the last decade. According to Kenneth Goldsmith, \"Just when you think Shields couldn't rethink and reinvent literature any further, he does it again. \u003ci\u003eThe Very Last Interview\u003c\/i\u003e confirms Shields as the most dangerously important American writer since Burroughs.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/29\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781681376424\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 164\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.81lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/15\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/10\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/2022 pg. 37\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"David Shields","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41574740492469,"sku":"9781681376424","price":12.71,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_fa74aada-f0bb-4238-9e20-7256440418e8.jpg?v=1643698619","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-very-last-interview-9781681376424","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}