Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell

"Critically acclaimed as one of the best albums of 2015, the elegiac and intimate record about the death of Sufjan's estranged mother reflects the musician's own paradoxical posture-Carrie & Lowell is both sacred and profane, Christian and queer, traditional and progressive, modern and postmodern. This book considers Carrie & Lowell as a mystical metamodern mementomori, Stevens' symphonic (as opposed to systematic) approach to the questions of mortality, meaning, and God. Fusing critical observations with personal narrative, Mayward examines the unique audience reception of Carrie & Lowell and the questions it raises: in a world of division, how might Stevens' affecting music act as a bridge of love between seemingly irreconcilable communities?"-- Provided by publisher.