Books
Coming out in December 2023 from Lexington Books!
This book unpacks and analyzes the central themes of sacrifice, melancholy, apocalypticism, and the nature of family and home in HBO’s The Leftovers to demonstrate the key role it played in the development of early twenty-first-century television. I argue that the story of The Leftovers is the most sustained exploration of loss ever to appear on American television and subverts the expectations of viewers who look to prestige dramas as puzzles to solve by providing no clear answers the mysteries most central to the show’s plot. Instead, the series endeavors to provide more nuanced and realistic portrayals of the melancholy that occurs when people’s lives are unmoored, leavening an inherently depressing experience with absurdity and moments of grace.
HBO’s The Leftovers: Mourning and Melancholy on Premium Cable
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, writers, filmmakers, performers, and a host of online communities have grappled with the question of a post-Soviet Russian identity. Soviet Self-Hatred explores the tension between anxiety and self-aggrandizement that has led to an identification with the Orcs of Tolkien and fueled hostility to the very idea of Ukraine.
Soviet Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Post-Socialism
A study of writers’ attempts to convey interiority in a commercial medium presumed to be aimed at children, Marvel in the 1970s pays particular attention to the work of Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck), Steve Englehart (Doctor Strange; The Avengers), Doug Moench (Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu), Marv Wolfman, (Tomb of Dracula), and Don McGregor (Killraven and The Black Panther).
Reviews
Jonathan Russell Clark. Esquire