Six hundred words on the most recent offering from Gilbert Sorrentino, a man now approaching his ninth decade? A brief review, precisely the sort of squib he makes look ridiculous? Lunar Follies pretends to be a compendium of such reviews, along with catalogue copy, publicity puffs, and other shorthand descriptions of artwork, artists, and their hangers-on. How can I show my appreciation without taking part in the sycophantic charade?

Nonetheless I must celebrate this man’s thirtieth book, a bravura feat of parody. Lunar Follies offers fifty-three self-contained art-world snippets, each one entirely the product of Sorrentino’s imagination and each depicting a creative venture that seems wearily familiar—that is to say, the pits. Through his reviewer’s witless gushing and hand-me-down blather (“strangely iconic and wholly sterile…”), we glimpse a repulsive nakedness made uglier by the industry’s lizardlike scramble after sex and bucks.

To read the rest of this piece, please purchase this issue of the Believer online or at your local bookseller.

—John Domini