About this episode
Derek McCormack discusses his latest book, 'Judy Blame's Obituary', exploring themes of fashion and personal memoir through interviews and essays.
Derek McCormack is a small town pervert and the author of The Well-Dressed Wound and Castle F*ggot, both published by Semiotext(e). His most recent book is Judy Blame's Obituary. This collection brings together for the first time McCormack's fashion journalism. He writes about and interviews fashion figures that fascinate him, tracing the ways they inspire and inhabit his novels. The result is a sort of memoir in essays: as he writes, "My tribute to [Judy] Blame is about him and about me—there are lots of my own tales woven in with the topics I touch on. The writing here is a sort of autobiography, a life seen through a scrim, or a life as a scrim—my moire mémoire." Judy Blame's Obituary contains twenty years' worth of reminiscences, reviews of fashion shows and books, interviews with writers about fashion, and interviews with fashion designers about writing. He talks to Nicolas Ghesquière about perfume, and to Edmund White about which perfume he wore as a young f*g in New York City. He inspects the clothes that Kathy Acker left behind when she died, and he summons the spirit of Margiela in a literary seance. He traces the history of sequins, then recounts the cursed story of…
People in this episode
Host: Paul K
Guest: Derek McCormack
Topics covered
- fashion journalism
- memoir
- interviews
- literary analysis
- cultural commentary
Keywords
- Derek McCormack
- Judy Blame's Obituary
- fashion
- memoir
- interviews
- cultural commentary
- literary analysis
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Well-Dressed Wound, Castle F*ggot, Judy Blame's Obituary
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