Chuck Klosterman’s new book, The Visible Man is pegged by The Atlantic as one of the 24 new releases to look forward to this fall.

From The Atlantic: 

Klosterman comes out with a new novel this fall, about a therapist and the mysterious patient she becomes obsessed with. While it is fiction, The Visible Man is concerned with many of the same themes Klosterman addresses in his celebrated essays: the influence of pop culture, the anxieties of modern life, and more.

Release date: October 4

Sad news: Borders announced today that it’s closing all of its bookstores. Here’s an old interview with Chuck Klosterman that takes place in an actual Borders—a fact that Klosterman alludes to right away.

-Lavin pop culture speaker Chuck Klosterman, from Grantland, on why Breaking Bad is better than The Wire.

Chuck Klosterman’s first memoir, Fargo Rock City, about his unabashed love for ‘80s metal, that most discredited of musical genres, was named to Pitchfork’s list of Favorite Music Books. With insanely riveting prose, Klosterman makes a personal case for the importance of this thoroughly uncool music that had a profound effect on him—and on millions of other teenagers during its commercial peak. Fargo Rock City, soon to be a major motion picture co-written by the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, is not simply a memoir about a musial genre; it is—like much of Klosterman’s writing—about the unexpected ways that pop culture, evenly lowly hair metal, can shape a young person’s life and bring meaning to it.

From Pitchfork:

Fargo Rock City is essentially Chuck Klosterman’s long-form love letter to hair metal. And while he didn’t invent the idea of personal narrative-as-music criticism, it’s hard to imagine a lot of our finest think-piece depositories existing without the admirable standards its tangent-prone prose set before the dawn of Tumblr. It’s as anti-authoritarian as any book on this list without wallowing in self-satisfied contrarianism or academic pomp; independently voiced but accessible and nostalgic while still maintaining a salty, unromantic edge.

It doesn’t hurt to have a working knowledge of the BulletBoys’ discography or an adolescence drinking cheap beer in a rural outpost going in, but it’s hardly necessary. The import of Fargo Rock City isn’t so much what’s said about “November Rain” or North Dakota so much as flipping the script on the common gripe about music criticism that “it tells you more about the reviewer than the album”: being an authority on one’s own experiences gives anybody a right to be a part of the conversation. Klosterman’s writing here has the passion, humor, and empathy to not only excuse the solipsism but justify it.

Lavin speaker and pop culture pontificator Chuck Klosterman has a new book out this fall, The Visible Man. It’s his second novel, following the Friday Night Lights-esque glory of Downtown Owl. Pre-order from Amazon here.

From the publisher:

From the provocative cultural commentator and author who “makes good, smart company” ( The New York Times ) comes an imaginative page-turner about a therapist and her unusual patient—a man who can render himself invisible.

Austin, Texas therapist Victoria Vick has been contacted by a man who believes his situation is unique. But as he reveals himself to her slowly and cryptically, she becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions. Y_, as she refers to him, is a scientist who has been using cloaking technology from an aborted government project to render himself nearly invisible. He uses this ability to sit and observe individuals in their daily lives, usually while they are otherwise alone. Unsure of exactly what, or how much, to believe, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient and his disclosure of increasingly bizarre and disturbing tales. Ultimately, Vick’s interactions with Y_ threaten her career, her marriage, and her well-being.

Interspersed with notes, correspondence, and transcriptions that catalog a relationship based on uncertainty, curiosity, and fear, The Visible Man touches on all of Klosterman’s favorite themes—from interaction with pop culture and the influence of media to issues of voyeurism, normalcy, and reality—and is sure to delight his ever-growing legion of fans.