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Kate Zambreno
Kate Zambreno is the author most recently of Drifts (Riverhead) and To Write As If Already Dead, a study of Hervé Guibert (Columbia University Press). Forthcoming in Summer 2023 from Riverhead is The Light Room, a meditation on art and care, as well as Tone, a collaboration with Sofia Samatar, from Columbia University Press in early 2024. ‘Insekt’ is part of an in-progress work of fiction, Realisms. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow.

Articles Available Online


Insekt or large verminous thing

Fiction

September 2022

Kate Zambreno

Fiction

September 2022

Around dusk one evening in March, I went out back to the small garage, and switched on my small square of artificial light at...

Feature

January 2018

Accumulations (Appendix F)

Kate Zambreno

Feature

January 2018

I’ve been keeping a mental list of all the pieces of art that I’ve nursed Leo in front of...

It’s not easy getting cucked Contrary to the consensus online, which sees a cuck in every message board, there are few worthy pretenders to the horns This is because real cuckoldry is a lifestyle and not a label; as a kink, it involves dedication, relish, and the same hierarchy of passion that might elsewhere distinguish a connoisseur from a minor foodie True cucks – cucks who are cucks because they get cucked on purpose – practice their own abasement with care They learn the customary etiquette of betrayal, the techniques for turning an intruder into an invitee A man who watches his wife have sex with others must be an adept of masculinity’s lowlier registers – pathetic enough for a rival to best him, but not too pathetic as to dip into the danger zone of the incel, who could never marry in the first place As you can imagine, much finesse is involved   Darryl, the tragicomic cuckold of Jackie Ess’ eponymous 2021 novel, is a white man in his forties living in Eugene, Oregon He enjoys well-done hamburgers, prodigious doses of GHB, and watching other men sleep with his wife, Mindy ‘It’s like seeing a guy hit a hundred home runs at once,’ he says, and the baseball analogy is apt Under so much of American culture (its sports, its politics, its economy), there exists the startlingly crystalline structure of male competition Only in cuckoldry, however, do you win when you lose Observing his wife have sex with Bill, a masculine ideal with pro-union politics, Darryl feels an ‘ecstasy of shame,’ an ‘ocean roar feeling’ These proclivities suggest a certain generosity of spirit, or at least libido – Darryl’s pleasure exists only in hot tessellation with the pleasure of others Still, the book begins with its protagonist a little bit morose: ‘How come I can’t be like Bill,’ the cuckold complains ‘How come I can’t be like Mindy’ Desire has turned into greed for his wife’s personhood This is how we know we’re back to the same old conventions of heterosexual marriage   Darryl goes to a nearby river to overdose

Contributor

August 2014

Kate Zambreno

Contributor

August 2014

Kate Zambreno is the author most recently of Drifts (Riverhead) and To Write As If Already Dead, a study...

Heroines

feature

March 2013

Kate Zambreno

feature

March 2013

I am beginning to realise that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking the self out feels like...

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Interview

Issue No. 5

Interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist

Ben Eastham

Interview

Issue No. 5

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a compulsive note taker. For the duration of our interview one hand twitches a pen...

Interview

May 2013

Interview with Darian Leader

Kishani Widyaratna

Interview

May 2013

A practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst, Darian Leader is one of a dying breed. It is no overstatement to say that...

Prize Entry

April 2017

/gosha rubchinskiy/

Christopher Burkham

Prize Entry

April 2017

1. APARTMENT INTERIOR/MORNING/BELYAYEVO, MOCKBA, ROSSIJSKAJA FEDERACIJA…   There is a T-shirt on the desk in front of him.  ...

 

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