PLATO SUCKS is a kaleidoscope of stories, riffs and rants about the nightmares and passions of poet at millennium’s end. Here are the origin myths of pottery and photography, seen through the eyes of a ceramicist and a child of photographers. Here also is the collapse of communism and the rise of nationalism from the perspective of a reporter who has covered the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and seen its replacement with the horror of fascism. These are stories that revel in the poetry, sexiness and paradoxes of our time. "Plato sucks", Codrescu says, "because the ideal world pales in comparison with the mysterious complexity of the real one. "

"One of our most prodigiously talented and magical writers. " Bruce Shlain, New York Times Book Review

"His command of language is superb, his writing beautifully original, and his insights piercing. "