A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Reexamined as a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations is the first book written by Cintra Wilson. The book consists of a collection of essays which focus on America's obsession with celebrity culture and how, according to Wilson, celebrity status and the desire to attain it, is a "grotesque crippling disease" that affects nearly every American who participates in and reacts to the mass media. Celebrities from Celine Dion to English post-punk front man from The Fall, Mark E. Smith are examined as victims of a larger, imaginary machine that uses artists for a period of time, and then discards them once they become unprofitable. In her book, Wilson focuses a good deal of attention to the influence that New York and Los Angeles play on people