Matthew Vollmer was born in Asheville, raised in the Western North Carolina mountains, graduated from UNC, and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. This is his second essay collection to go with two short fiction collections. He is an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech. These are wide-ranging, almost stream-of-consciousness essays. If nobody had invented the word, “eclectic,” somebody would have had to in order to describe Vollmer’s subject matter here. "Captivating journeys with a playful, winsome guide." ―Kirkus Reviews.
“Who else but Matthew Vollmer would travel in status faux-updates from Justin Bieber to embalming fluids, from a presidential execution order to an Amazon order for cutlery? A thrilling, hilarious book about the difference between privacy and publicity, between exhibition and excavation, between ephemera and art (hint: the saving grace of life on earth is human consciousness).” ―David Shields.
Rochester, New York, BOA Editions, 2018. 172 pages. Trade paperback.