The End of Being Known

Reviews / Votes

Michael Klein has the gruff voice of Lionel Stander and the fine-tuned soul of Rilke. He writes beautifully. This is not just poetic prose but a strange prose concentrate that mixes sweet metaphor and brute fact, high ideals and earthbound comedy. Klein can suggest more in a single paragraph than many of us can say in a hundred pages. - Christopher Bram, author of Father of Frankenstein and Gossip; ""Michael Klein, like Duras, peels back the layers of his emotional life to examine the inner workings of his emotional and sexual soul. The results are stellar; Klein writes with a nearly hallucinatory attention to detail and an honesty that is as fascinating as it is disarming."" - Darcey Steinke, author of Suicide Blonde; ""In a world where most individuals are indifferent, dishonest, and cruel - Michael Klein is a model for truth and responsibility. He faces his trauma and illness with eyes wide open, refusing to pretend, withhold, or destroy. Instead, he does the interior work that no one else wants to do, and emerges as a man who deserves the gifts of life. This is a very very valuable book."" - Sarah Schulman, author of Shimmer; ""Michael Klein makes muscular, restless, relentless sentences that keep coming at you. This is a book of difficult, beautiful lyricism. The End of Being Known is, in the end, a knowing memoir, an archeology of a man's body and mind rendered through language."" - Victoria Redel, author of Swoon