[1] Keckler has been hailed as a "major vocal talent... with a trickster's dark humor" whose wide vocal range "shatters the conventional boundaries" by the New York Times,[2] was once crowned "best downtown performance artist" in New York City by The Village Voice,[3] and has been described as a subversive originator of "unnerving artistry" who "hardly seems human" in a 2019 review in The Observer.
[4] Keckler is known for his voice, his carefully wrought stream-of-consciousness monologues,[5] songwriting, and in particular for performing in a genre of his own design that fuses operatic vocals, storytelling, and contemporary subject matter.
Deemed a "classic" by Indiewire, "Shroom Aria," for instance, is an autobiographical account of a hallucinogenic overdose, relayed as a 7-minute Italian opera.
[6] In 2019 toured with the band Sleater-Kinney as national support act in The United States[7] after premiering two performance pieces earlier in the year.
In a conversation with Olivia Laing in BOMB magazine Keckler describes the book as being composed largely of portraits of eccentric individuals he has known.