Ecstasy of Influence

A career-spanning collection of occasional pieces, essays, memoir, liner notes, and criticism that doubles as a novelist’s manifesto and self-portrait. Lethem tackles the role of the writer as a public intellectual, exploring eclectic topics like cyberculture, 9/11, graffiti, sex in cinema, and iconic cultural figures like Bob Dylan and Marlon Brando.
Funny and unfettered, The Ecstasy of Influence simmers with direct challenges to conventional wisdom and deep insights into the kaleidoscopic nature of artistic vision, the primacy of the writer in the cultural marketplace, and the way the author’s own experiences have fuelled his creative passions.