Bluesky

In Kevin Killian’s posthumous Selected Amazon Reviews, the reader learns more about the late poet and critic’s inner and outer life than they might expect. Via an unwieldy series of Amazon reviews he wrote with considerable fervor (reduced and cataloged chronologically in this edition for the reader’s convenience), we learn how Killian spent his earnings from his day job as a secretary at Able Building Maintenance, about his descent from his third-story window with a ladder (which he reviews) in order to escape a phantom intruder, about his affection for the woman he married—Dodie Bellamy, another New Narrative writer of note.

Progressing through the years 2004 (following a major heart attack) to 2019 (the year of Killian’s death), we’re introduced to various artifacts, both scholarly and pedestrian, that represent the accelerating capitalistic fervor characteristic of the early aughts: The Ring Two, Aveda Sap Moss Conditioning Detangler, various books, vintage films, a birdhouse, Gossip Girl, a marionette puppet, a track from Kylie Minogue, eau de toilette by Lolita Lempicka (Au Masculin). Via this accumulation of sundry objects and references—also under study are literary works by the Beats, other Bay Area cultural icons, the Black Mountain School, the Hudson River School, and mainstream American culture (including The Polar Express and Frozen, for which he wishes “at least fourteen other sequels”)—Killian casts himself in parallel roles: as a cultural translator and the consummate consumer, demonstrating one prevailing drive that underlies a person’s pursuit of paid work.

Killian’s wry attempts to humanize commercial enterprises (on Amazon, no less) are not merely cheeky, of course. These reviews are intimate enough to make me miss a man I never knew. Yet Killian does not laud the digital marketplace in any straightforward manner: His collection is not a mere compendium of love letters addressed to trash later to be disposed of. And though they’re intended to redirect our attention from Killian toward the item under discussion, we end up reading these reviews as a proto-autobiographical text, or as a series of object lessons that instill in readers a sense of just how intertwined our selfhood is with the material items we work the majority of our lives to enjoy.

Composed using a ready-made template (the quintessential Amazon review features the name of product and its maker, a starred rating decided upon by the consumer, the title of the review, and its date, followed by the review itself), this undertaking begins more than two decades ago with rave reviews of Amy Gerstler’s novel Ghost Girl and Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (the extended cut). It’s amusing that Killian provides no guarantee that the products he reviews were purchased from Amazon itself—thus the site operates less as a platform for e-commerce than as a diary in the form of a consumer’s report. Killian disrupts the marketplace with zeal; more often than not, the items are given five stars. Everything that he makes use of, regardless of its quality or effect, is deemed worthy of measured consideration, indicating the thoughtfulness that informed his daily life.

Killian’s unique style contrasts with traditional product reviews—or professional criticism more generally—because it avoids aligning itself too closely with any of the purposes that usually underwrite the form. It is not entirely altruistic, or intended to help producers or consumers, and Killian rarely encourages or dissuades anyone from purchasing a given item. (Nor did he make any money off of these endorsements.) This project is not entirely scientific either—Killian fails to empirically assess whether the products he reviews fulfill their stated purpose, instead preferring tangents and biases.

The Amazon review, for Killian, is a capacious form, and in some instances, rather than assuming the role of a critic, he opts instead for the eulogist. He writes obituaries for Janet Leigh of Psycho, Rodney Dangerfield (on which occasion he revisits Back to School), and Christopher Reeve, whom he memorializes via a review of Superman that hardly mentions the film at all, using the form instead as a “free space” to muse about the actor’s merit—logical under capitalism, in which one’s occupation and professional accomplishments often constitute the measure of a life well lived.

These reviews reveal Killian as an eccentric and a hobbyist: He is a model helicopter enthusiast; marvels at movie stars and designer clothes; critiques at length the sound quality and camerawork of Guys Gone Wild; makes gift recommendations for the parents of goth teens; expresses delight in a lime-green alien belly-button ring, Gerber’s sweet-potato baby food, a car seat, a NARS makeup palette, and the 2002 Holiday Celebration Barbie (reviewed in September 2008). Throughout the collection, he frequently references his childhood in France (“As an American boy growing up in France” and its variations become a sort of refrain), though, as Brian Dillon notes in 4Columns, Killian experienced nothing of the sort—nor did he and Bellamy have any of the children he mentions on numerous occasions.

One of my favorite passages recalls his encounter with a stranger at an old folks’ home he visits with a copy of The Sunshine on My Face: A Read-Aloud Book for Memory-Challenged Adults. By the end of the review, this stranger has become Killian’s “new friend,” whom he has provoked to recount long-forgotten memories of World War II and his youth, to the astonishment of the other residents. Similarly, in a review of A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley, Killian is coerced into purchasing a copy by neighborhood children selling used books for charity—another byproduct of happenstance and Killian’s effusive heart. We later see that openness rewarded when he notes, in his review of Ultimate Gay Erotica 2005, an encounter with a character in the smut collection reading Killian’s own erotic writing. It’s a moment of recognition that suits Killian’s providence and underscores the spirit of New Narrative literature: that life, in flickering moments, just might be too good to be true.

In Wayne Koestenbaum’s introduction, he approximates Killian’s “practice” of leaving reviews of materialistic junk on Amazon as though the late critic were issuing a steady stream of “hot takes (though most of these reviews probably precede the popularity of the tart phrase).” Koestenbaum is correct in identifying the proximity of these reviews to the lingua franca of the Internet and its chattering literati, but this assessment is not entirely correct—if anything, Killian’s reviews more closely anticipate the influencer culture that has saturated social media in recent years, such as the “Get ready with me” or “Restock my bathroom” videos on TikTok, which are driven not by the spirit of pointed criticism but by an urge to consume and share knowledge with others. When Killian writes an Amazon review, he is not merely making a claim about the quality of a product available for purchase; he is really offering a means with which to relate.

By the collection’s conclusion, in a review of Words to Be Looked At: Language in 1960s Art by Liz Kotz, Killian anticipates the publication of this book after his passing. “Hmm…,” he begins. “Makes me afraid that forty years from now, the scholars of the future will be pouncing on all the one-star reviews I’ve written for Amazon, and showing that the works of art I hated will be universally held up in 2049 as works of genius and I’m a fool. I know it’s going to happen, and knowing I’ll be dead by the time that happens doesn’t make me less afraid for myself!” Considering the book’s recent success, Killian needn’t have worried. And considering the trade wars that have already come to characterize 2025, Killian’s measured study of consumerism and its excesses may prove a useful relic for archival purposes, cataloging the unique charms and idiosyncrasies of early-20th-century e-commerce in the period preceding and following the Great Recession, perhaps anticipating other economic downturns to come.

Intimate and playful, these vignettes grant readers and friends proximity to Killian beyond the ether and the interface of Amazon.com. Their publication in this collection, an affectionate gesture made in lieu of the usual Collected Stories or Collected Poems that tend to follow a literary figure’s departure from this world, is terribly romantic, tuned to Killian’s specific genius: endearing at its bitchiest, acerbic at its most sweet.