Where Is the Light Coming From (Essays on Art and Regular People)

Cultural critic and novelist Dan Kois explores the way art, literature, music, and theater make themselves relevant to all sorts of—as artists call them—“regular people”: postal workers writing their lives with the help of a legendary cartoonist; angry socialites protesting a tacky statue; readers falling in love with America’s cheesiest poet; librarians being asked to defend a modernist masterpiece that everyone knows is very dirty. Interspersed with Kois’s keen-eyed reporting are moving, funny personal narratives illustrating the rewards of staying alert to the possibilities of art: a life-changing decision based on a hopeless crush on a regional theater actress; a clarifying encounter with a grumpy traveler at an Italian hotel; and a previously unpublished story from inside a Kentucky memory-care facility, where Kois helps a MacArthur Fellow conjure an astonishing theater production starring dementia patients. Written with sharp critical insight and disarming honesty, these eleven essays offer a fresh angle on the age-old question of how art makes an impact on the world.