What Books Press
"Gary Oldman... is a gloriously entrancing
'elaboration,' an obsession in prose. One wonders at Gary Oldman, containing
multitudes: Wittgenstein's Nephew comes
to mind, though so do Notable
American Women, The Making of
Americans, I Looked Alive. 'This is something which
the I hasn't been trained for,' we're told. Indeed." -- Gabriel Blackwell, author of Madeleine
E.
"A tessellation of spinning faces—some legendary, some
just neurotic—Forrest Roth’s Gary
Oldman... is a playful pattern,
masterfully tailored, as though for a famous actress, a red carpet star.
Perhaps without blushing, perhaps she signs her autograph." -- Lily Hoang, author of A
Bestiary
"Like an exploded villanelle, or Oulipo with invisible constraints, this darkly playful Beckettian monologue maps a syntactically circuitous route to the meaning of fame, violence, interiority, and language itself. It's smart, it's mysterious, and it's damn funny." -- Shya Scanlon, author of The Guild of Saint Cooper
"Gary Oldman... is an insanely original, hyperreal
romp through the simulacra of celebrity and culture and celebrity culture. In
this sprawling monologue of a book, Roth proves that a novel can be just that: novel.
There are no precedents." -- Ryan Ridge, author of American
Homes
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