“The genre of memoir is bullshit (as I humbly posit). No one actually lives like they are moving along some grand Freytag’s triangle. Rather, we live within isolated instances, specific struggles and victories, which, when compiled, form a narrative.”–Richard Kelly Kemick
In Decadence, Richard Kelly Kemick’s “accidental memoir of a sort,” the author ranges widely through his myriad preoccupations and obsessions–volleyball, municipal landfills, dogs, high school plays, Christmas villages, love–out of which the shape of a unique sensibility is revealed. Reminiscent of the three Davids–Rakoff, Sedaris, and Wallace–these essays accrete into a portrait of a man trying to make sense of a world in which there are no goddamn rules; and yet one in which every action has sometimes profound consequences. A book of intelligence and care and kindness and humour and yearning and the occasional epiphany, Decadence gathers up from the odds and ends of living what makes a modern life–quiet and desperate as it may at times be–worth celebrating.
Author: Richard Kelly Kemick
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 07/07/2026
Pages: 264
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.20w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781771967136
Language: English
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