‘A masterpiece. One by one, the so-called important books of our time will be forgotten, but Joe Brainard’s modest little gem will endure.’ Paul Auster
With a new introduction by Olivia Laing, alongside Paul Auster’s original.
An enduring gem, Joe Brainard’s I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic. Brainard’s method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each beginning with the refrain ‘I remember’: ‘I remember that little jerk you give just before you fall asleep. Like falling.’
Recollections – jokes, confessions, daydreams and memories – were carefully, lovingly woven together. They were of family and friends; of movie stars; of early heterosexual fumblings and later gay life. Brainard’s pared-back prose dodged both self-pity and judgement of others, and was written with an ear for musical cadence and an extraordinary painter’s eye. The result is witty, incantatory, profound and wholly captivating.
‘I Remember has something of rock and roll’s appeal, the same shy person’s revenge, dignifying the adolescent-grade flavours of yearning, hope and a willingness to be embarrassed for a higher cause . . . [A] still effervescent bible of days.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Astonishing . . . a relentlessly specific time-capsule of a book, which bizarrely, movingly, seems to slip the confines of time.’ Daily Telegraph
‘I would make a case for I Remember as one of the twenty or so most important American autobiographies, important for its air of unimportance and for its mingling of cultural bric-a-brac with sexual frankness and self-revelation.’ New Yorker
‘Completely original.’ Edmund White
‘Buy it, for everyone you know . . . I can’t think of a more original or lovely book.’ Olivia Laing
‘Joe Brainard discovered a memory machine.’ Siri Hustvedt
‘It’s a great work that will last and last – in other words, it is literature.’ James Shuyler
‘Elegiac and sly, sad and sexy, simple yet deeply affecting, I Remember is a work of true singularity and a book impossible to forget.’ Stuart Evers
‘A landmark work for so many memoirists.’ Adelle Stripe