cover image Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant

Joel Golby. Anchor, $16 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-0-525-56277-1

Whether one takes a shine to Vice contributor Golby’s breezy collection of essays will inevitably hinge upon how one feels about his employer and what its detractors would term a distinct brand of self-conscious hipster posturing. Wherever one stands, Golby’s writing does not set itself apart from the expected Vice fare: profanity is employed liberally if not ostentatiously throughout, as are references to bodily fluids and controlled substances. He writes with unemotional ironic detachment about his dead parents (“Things You Only Know When Both Your Parents Are Dead”), but analyzes Rocky movies with seeming heart-on-sleeve sincerity; he also manages to write passionately about attempting to achieve his adolescent dream of fellating himself. In other essays, he simply comes off like an English Chuck Klosterman, writing with grating hyperbole about a number of pop culture subjects, including the evil inherent in the game Monopoly; a website called Twitch, where one watches people play video games; and, in a particularly overwritten entry, sex robots in Barcelona. Golby isn’t without talent, but his flamboyant attitude can’t make up for the severely limited palette of his subject matter and tone. (Mar.)