Decadence - by Richard Kelly Kemick (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"The genre of memoir is bullshit (as I humbly posit). No one actually lives like they are moving along some grand Freytag's triangle. Rather, we live within isolated instances, specific struggles and victories, which, when compiled, form a narrative."--Richard Kelly Kemick

In Decadence, Richard Kelly Kemick's "accidental memoir of a sort," the author ranges widely through his myriad preoccupations and obsessions--volleyball, municipal landfills, dogs, high-school plays, Christmas villages, love--out of which the shape of a unique sensibility is revealed. Reminding the reader of the three Davids--Rakoff, Sedaris, and Wallace--these essays accrete into a portrait of a man trying to make sense of a world in which there are no goddamn rules; and yet one in which every action has sometimes profound consequences. A book of intelligence and care and kindness and humour and yearning and the occasional epiphany, Decadence gathers up from the odds and ends of living what makes a modern life, quiet and desperate as it may at times be, worth celebrating and living.

Review Quotes

Praise for Hello, Horse

"The tales here mix whimsy, weirdness, lust, and Canadian politics, bringing to mind George Saunders and the slackers from Wayne's World . . . He has a penchant for alternating between things familiar and bizarre . . . Provocative, entertaining short fiction."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Richard Kelly Kemick's Hello, Horse is wildly original and filled with astonishing moments. A wonderful collection that resonates long after reading."
--Don Gillmor, author of Breaking and Entering

"Hello, Horse is beguiling and wondrous, with talking dogs and nuns at the end of the world, images that linger with strange pleasure; Richard Kelly Kemick is a stellar wordsmith."
--Mark Anthony Jarman, author of Burn Man

Praise for Richard Kelly Kemick

"Kemick convincingly wrests the sublime from the trivial. He manages, astonishingly, a tone both earnest and ironic, with details and insights that are lively, unexpected, funny, and poignant."
--National Magazine Awards

"Richard Kemick spends a summer in Alberta's Bible Belt where it may be easier to find God than a vegetarian meal. There, he confronts age-old questions about belief with near-miraculous freshness, honesty, and humour. A deeply personal investigation of the blurred border between faith and imagination."
--Marcello Di Cintio, author of Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers

About the Author

Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet, journalist, and fiction writer. His debut collection of short stories, Hello, Horse, was published by Biblioasis in 2024. He is also the author of I Am Herod (available on audiobook), the poetry collection Caribou Run, and the stage play Amor De Cosmos: A Delusional Musical. Richard's limited series podcast, Natural Life, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan.