The American Subject by Kenneth Goldsmith

The American Subject Kenneth Goldsmith 12,5 × 19 cm 224 pages Softcover, silver pantone Release: July 2026 English edition ISBN: 978-2-36568-140-7 The JBE Books Readings series The Readings series brings together key texts by authors and artists—some previously unpublished, others extracts from previously published art books—which are presented here in a format designed specifically for reading. Blending true crime, American history, and conceptual poetry, The American Subject is the dramatic sequel to Goldsmith’s bestselling Seven American Deaths and Disasters. Drawing on medical examiner and police investigation reports, its twenty-four prose poems meticulously examine the postmortem bodies of American political figures, religious leaders, and celebrities, from Abraham Lincoln to Kurt Cobain. In doing so, Goldsmith constructs an alternative American history—one inscribed upon the bodies themselves rather than in the public events that conventionally define the past. Extending his earlier investigations in uncreative writing, these texts pose provocative questions of authorship, witness, and style, further expanding the boundaries of what literature can be. The Subjects: Iconic American figures Abraham Lincoln, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Steven Parent, Voyteck Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Twelve Elvises, Jim Jones, John Belushi, Karen Carpenter, L. Ron Hubbard, Kurt Cobain, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Michael Brown, Robin Williams