anomic

This was suburban Tucson in the 1990s, a lower-middle class enclave of senior would-be retirees working service jobs and anomic teens slaking our alienation with hooliganism and bad hardcore music.

Unlike their cinematic equivalents, which exaggerate and explode contemporary anxieties in an increasingly anomic world, these plays ask us to consider our acceptance of gruesome shock and awe as entertainment.

That this fellow is probably — to use the diagnosis du jour — somewhere “on the spectrum” suggests how quick we’ve become in this anomic era to identify — and identify with — autism and its implicit detachment.

Both the stories and poems are rooted in the grain and fiber of Washington, installing this notoriously anomic city with a real sense of place.

Mr. Lamar has always been a fluent technician, if an insular and anomic presence.