E! Entertainment

by Kate Durbin

E! ENTERTAINMENT sparkles with the static of TV personalities, the privileged dramas of MTV's The Hills and Bravo's Real Housewives, the public tragedies of Amanda Knox and Anna Nicole Smith. Durbin traces the migratory patterns of the flightiest members of our televised demimonde, from the vacant bedrooms of the Playboy Mansion to the modern gothic of Kim Kardashian's fairytale wedding, rendering a fabulous, fallen world in a language of diamond-studded lavishness.

"Durbin elevates petty O.C. arguments between Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag to the status of serious literature." -Nylon Magazine

"Durbin calls attention to the female character tropes and formulaic narratives that so frequently make up reality TV shows: cattiness, competition amongst women, archetypes for female friendships, etcetera. But far from the snark of most tabloids and celebrity gossip blogs, Durbin considers these women with respect, taking them seriously."
-Bitch Magazine

"Kate Durbin is pop culture’s stenographer. E! Entertainment ingeniously peers inside the television static, revealing the many fictions that make up our reality, and the many realities which make up our fictions. It’s also a lot of fun to read. I love it.”
-Heidi Montag, star of MTV’s The Hills

“Since it’s clear that ours is a Golden Age of TV it makes perfect sense that it might be a perfect moment for some Golden Age-type writing on reality television. Boom! That’s what you get in Durbin’s yummy delve into housewives, sexy sirens, lonesome doomed doves, and other boys and girls behaving badly but always with a sense of power.”
-Jerry Saltz, senior art critic, New York Magazine

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published November 19, 2011

About the author

Kate Durbin is a writer and artist from Los Angeles, California. Her books include Hoarders (Wave Books), E! Entertainment (Wonder), The Ravenous Audience (Akashic Books), and ABRA (1913 Press). ABRA is also an iOS app that is "a living text," which won the 2017 international Turn On Literature Prize for electronic literature. In 2015 and in 2020, she was the Arts Queensland Poet-in-Residence in Brisbane, Australia.

Kate's writing has been published in Art in America, The American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Flaunt, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. Her website is www.katedurbin.la.

Reviews

[⏺ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shot of Luca enjoying the book. He doesn't have French manicured nails.

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a good idea! Totally mesmerizing. Also looks great.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating and some sharp descriptions. Love the juxtipostional (word?) nature of The Housewives section.

[Casey Clough · Rating 4 out of 5]

E! Entertainment is an odd little book - with shocking pink pages that feel beyond apt for the content. The book is a little bit poetry, a little bit... non-fiction, I guess? It is largely comprised of synopses of reality tv episodes - Real Housewives, Kim Kardashian's televised wedding preceding her 72 day marriage, some televised events like the Amanda Knox trial. The synopses are sometimes literal transcripts of what's happening on screen, highlighting features of the shows that are oft-ignored, like the landscapes shown in transition scenes, the cheesy royalty-free music, etc. At other times, they serve as biting commentary on the things we notice about reality stars - their bodies, their nails, their over-the-top homes, the glossy state of their lips. It was a quick read, I found it both funny and a little sad, and I think it's probably for you if you enjoy reality TV and more out there works of art.

[Blaine Wajdowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. And different. It's as if someone is watching these shows and transcribing everything they see literally, to be reproduced on a script or screenplay

[Alex Borden · Rating 3 out of 5]

In theory, this book was written for me. But I found it to be mostly transcription pointing out the oddities of reality tv and I wished it had built on it more. Love the premise.

[Hetian bias · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Kate Durbin is pop culture’s stenographer.”
—Heidi Montag

[Lisa Flowers]

http://tiny.cc/rcwcew

[Carrie]

Entertaining.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of realator-type descriptions of various pseudo-posh bedrooms, all owned, it becomes increasingly clear, by Hugh Hefner, all permeated by a restrained yet sleazy misogyny.

[Sarah Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Durbin's writing is crucial.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant through and through. I wrote about the chapbook Kept Women, included here, for Fanzine: http://thefanzine.com/images-of-kept-...

[Madeleine Maillet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulously weird and funny.