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In his preface to Disappearing Persons: Shame and Appearance, Benjamin Kilborne states that his “basic thesis is neither original nor startling: that we attempt to control the way we feel by controlling the way we appear” (p. xi). However, Kilborne presents an innovative, thought-provoking, and scholarly discussion of the concept and dynamics of oedipal shame-a topic that is often neglected in the psychoanalytic literature—and its relationship to appearance anxiety. As Kilborne notes, there is a wealth of literature on oedipal guilt and self-psychologists have explored preoedipal shame, but oedipal shame has gone relatively unexamined. He allows the reader to experience and understand the feeling of oedipal shame through the struggles of those who desperately seek recognition, yet retreat into fantasies of invisibility and omnipotence because they are so despairing and frightened of ever being recognized in their own eyes or the eyes of others.
Kilborne illustrates and explores the dynamics of oedipal shame and its relationship to appearance anxiety through vivid examples from literature, film, mythology, history, philosophy, popular culture, and clinical vignettes. One of the book's many strengths is that, despite the diversity of its sources, Kilborne makes his literary, cinematic, and philosophical references easily accessible even to someone not intimately familiar with the works. I, however, found myself inspired to view again The Rules of the Game and reread several of the literary works analyzed by Kilborne, such as Kafka's “The Hunger Artist,” Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, to think more deeply about the connection between oedipal shame and appearance anxiety.
In the introduction, Kilborne reinterprets the Oedipus myth, focusing on shame and despair rather than on guilt and aggression. Kilborne suggests that “Oedipus puts out his eyes because he cannot tolerate seeing others looking at him in scorn