Gary Indiana, a multifaceted individual, is not to be confused with the Midwestern city of the same name. Born in 1950 in New England, Indiana is a novelist, journalist, actor, and film historian who has made a significant impact in his respective fields.
Indiana's career in journalism began when he served as the art critic for the "Village Voice" weekly newspaper from 1985 to 1988. During this period, he also published two short story collections, "Scar Tissue" in 1987 and "White Trash Boulevard" in 1988, as well as multiple novels.
His first novel, "Horse Crazy," was published in 1989, followed by "Gone Tomorrow" in 1993 and "Rent Boy" in 1994. The same year, his play "Roy Cohn/Jack Smith" was adapted into a film.
Indiana's critical writings were collected in "Let It Bleed: Essays 1985-1995" in 1996. He then delved into the true crime genre with "Resentment: A Comedy," a heavily fictionalized retelling of the Lyle and Erik Menendez trial, published in 1997. This was followed by the straight non-fictional "Three Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story" in 1999.
Indiana's novel "Depraved Indifference" (2002) is based on the story of the Kimes, a mother-and-son duo who perpetrated fraud and murder. According to Indiana, he wrote the trilogy to explore the question of why there is evil in human nature and where it comes from. He believes that the insanity of his murderers is rooted in American materialism.
The three true crime books also pointedly portray the media frenzy that accompanies murder cases in America as a kind of madness. Indiana's latest book, "The Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contemporary Culture" (2005),argues that the electoral success of a mediocre, washed-up movie star with no political experience, who improbably became the governor of the state with the fifth largest economy in the world, is the result of this media madness, in which style matters more than substance.
Indiana's critical facility has been recognized by the UK newspaper "The Guardian," which has labeled him "one of the most important chroniclers of the American psyche."
