New: Beauty Doesn't Reach Me at Zona Motel

It was more than a bit of a thrill to find a new review of Beauty Doesn't Reach Me (We Heard You Like Books) in my email today.

Chris Oxley's piece on the book at Zona Motel looks at Beauty Doesn't Reach Me with a deep imaginative sympathy with my endeavor:

Byrne uses the mask as a kind of Rosetta Stone, constructing a narrative through procedural means, taking side quests (though never straying too far from his path), and connecting the sub-journeys back to Toller and his “final image.”

Oxley also connects what I have written with a number of other works in a way that is extraordinarily flattering, including "Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey by Mack McCormick (Smithsonian Books, 2023), All the Devils are Here by David Seabrook (Granta, 2018), and Bill Morrison’s documentary film Dawson City: Frozen Time (Kino Lorber, 2016)."

Very happy to be in that company.

I am also delighted that Beauty Doesn't Reach Me found a room at Zona Motel. It is the liveliest public forum for readers – in the U.S. and abroad – in our moment. I subscribe to the site and check in pretty much every day.

Find out more about Zona Motel here.

Check out my personal website and the We Heard You Like Books website for more information about Beauty Doesn’t Reach Me, including how you can buy a copy.

Listen to a discussion of Beauty Doesn't Reach Me (27 minutes) at Neil Denny's Little Atoms podcast.

Read Tobias Carroll's take on the book at Inside Hook.

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Fredric Wertham, anti-comic books crusader, in the 1950s. (Library of Congress)

The U.S. Anti-Comic Book Movement: New Evidence

My new book, Beauty Doesn’t Reach Me, examines the journey of antifascist playwright Ernst Toller’s death mask from the hands of its maker to the collection at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City. Along the way, a new window into the anti-comic book crusade of

Beauty Doesn't Reach Me at the Little Atoms Podcast

Neil Denny's Little Atoms podcast is one of the best places to check in on the latest intellectual currents in literature, science, art and politics. It is always terrific to see writers whom you know there: George Saunders discussing his new book, Vigil, or Laura Lippman talking about

Headline from the evening edition of the New York Journal-American on May 22, 1939. (Library of Congress)

Powers We Pretend to Understand

This is the fourth and final essay in a series written to coincide with the publication of Beauty Doesn’t Reach Me (We Heard You Like Books). Order a copy now. One of the things I discovered quickly as I started to research the death mask of antifascist playwright and

Hesketh: An Artist Lost & Found

This is the third in a series of essays written to coincide with the publication of Beauty Doesn’t Reach Me (We Heard You Like Books). Order a copy now. My new book, Beauty Doesn’t Reach Me, would not exist without Florence “Hesketh” Wertham. Hesketh – who preferred to be

Read more

The U.S. Anti-Comic Book Movement: New Evidence

Beauty Doesn't Reach Me at the Little Atoms Podcast

Powers We Pretend to Understand

Hesketh: An Artist Lost & Found