SOURCE: A review of Remote, in Library Journal, Vol. 121, No. 3, February 15, 1996, p. 158.

In the following review, Braun presents a positive assessment of Remote.

Shields, a novelist (A Handbook for Drowning) and professor at the University of Washington, presents "a self-portrait given over to a single subject and splintered into fifty-two pieces." His post-modern autobiography [Remote], complete with childhood photo opportunities, is quirky and filled with topical allusions to the infamous (O.J. Simpson) and the not so famous (Bob Balaban, a character actor). His work consists of an assortment of off-the-wall observations and digressions (on television and movies, desire, acne, sports, etc.); transcriptions (53 roadside Wall Drug signs in South Dakota, dreams about Kurt Cobain, bumper stickers, etc.); and references (often with footnotes) filtered through his offbeat viewpoint. In a subtle way, Shields imparts the vague cynicism and bemusement of one growing up in middle America in the Sixties...