“Koestenbaum’s writing, like his interests, is diffuse and gymnastic. Cutting a silhouette around white space with his longtime preoccupations of art, desire, form, famous people dead and alive, the work in Figure It Out embodies Lukács’s definition of the essay itself as “an autonomous and integral giving-of-form to an autonomous and complete life.” It is in the non-pause that Koestenbaum draws a portrait of a consciousness, free and at its most utterly alive.”

Tracy O’Neill’s review of Wayne Koestenbaum’s Figure It Out is a beautifully crafted inquiry into both content and form. This review added Figure It Out to BOMB Magazine‘s Editors’ Choice series.