"I've Seen The Future and I'm Not Going" by Peter McGough (Pantheon)

ISBN: 978-1-5247-4704-6

I'm fascinated with Dandies, either from the past or contemporary times.  McDermott & McGough are two artists that work as one, and their aesthetic is very much ignoring the 21st century and most of the 20th as well.  I'm an admirer of their paintings as well as their obsession with the Victorian lifestyle.  Extremism, as a choice has always fascinated me as well.   By chance, I came upon Peter McGough's memoir, and it's a great piece of literature that places one in the world of New York City circa the 1980s and 1990s.  I knew very little of their lives, and like Gilbert & George, the other art duo, their lives were an exciting mystery to me.  The more I don't know about them, the more I find attractive.  Still, this memoir is also about the art planet of that era, and McGough is an excellent and very straight forward prose stylist.   A delicate and sometimes disturbing narrative, but once I finished the book, the mystery now exposed, is also put me in a state of admiring the duo much more.  Although one can point a finger against McDermott in certain aspects of their lives together, it is also a vibrant life.  "I've Seen the Future and I'm Not Going" is a great companion piece to Duncan Hannah's "20th Century Boy, which is a flip of a coin.  Soho, New York life, comes back to life (in print) and it's a scary but profound journey.