Literary Nonfiction. Kevin O'Rourke's debut collection explores what it means to be both the subject and the performer of the gaze. His essays demand answers to the questions: How do we lift up the surgical drape and what do we do with what is found there? How do we manage the space between the subject and onlooker? What happens when the body gazes back? In these essays, the body becomes a medical object, a dying musician sends missives into the blogosphere, we witness the strained interview on the radio of a hip-hop star. The writer and his corona of family are not excused from such scrutiny: O'Rourke recounts the experience of losing his mother to cancer, his own childhood maladies, and too, his longings, and his own gaze onto the great scaffolds of Art. Kevin O'Rourke joins the community of skilled essayists that include David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Leslie Jamison, his own voice full of wit and ballast.

ケヴィン・オルークの本書は、「視線」という知的なテーマを軸に、肉体の不確かさを鮮烈に描いた傑作です。医療で客体化された身体や死にゆく者の尊厳を、外科手術のような精密さで解剖します。観察者と被写体の境界が崩れる瞬間に立ち現れる実存の痛みは、読者に自分自身の身体を「他者の眼」で再発見させるような衝撃を与えます。 著者の文体は、知的なユーモアと喪失の悲哀を真っ向から受け止める誠実さを兼ね備えています。個人的な体験を普遍的な人間性の探求へと昇華させる筆致は、デイヴィッド・フォスター・ウォレスにも比肩する深みを持ち、混沌とした世界を生き抜く羅針盤となります。ページをめくるごとに、あなたの世界の見え方は「ある角度から」一変するはずです。