A neurotic, unapologetic, hilarious collection.
Emmy-winning screenwriter Resnick holds nothing back in this debut of shamelessly personal tales.
Parents, siblings, former teachers, the blue-haired woman on the eighth floor—everyone is fair game in the author’s world. Darting from one defining (or scarring) memory to another, Resnick honestly recounts early childhood mishaps, the confusion of adolescence and the truly confounding notion of fatherhood. The writing is sharp and sharp-tongued, sometimes close to the line of mean-spirited—the book is not for readers who are easily offended. The opening story centers on a classmate’s Easter party, which Resnick had no intentions of attending until he realized his crush would be there. At the party, the author bonded with the young girl based on their mutual dislike of other kids, and they set out to find the “special” Easter egg filled with money. What he actually found was a highly inappropriate picture in the host’s filing cabinet that sent his crush fleeing, never to speak to him again. Meanwhile, Resnick’s young mind was forever warped and confounded by the image. The vulgar, adult language employed while explaining the story from his young self’s perspective is simultaneously unsettling and uproarious and sets the tone for the rest of the collection. Incidents—like the apartment porter’s pitching a screenplay while the elevator was delayed or when Resnick threw out his daughter’s piano while she was on vacation—could be pulled straight from lost scripts of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The stories of Resnick’s first job at a sleazy insurance company and his refusal as a child to pose with a frozen turkey at the supermarket stand out for their wit and relatability. The author’s aversion to just about everything paints him as nihilistic and cynical, but the subtle moments of genuine vulnerability remain the heart of every story. These moments prove redemptive for a character who sometimes feels beyond saving and shed light on how he developed such comically twisted viewpoints.
A neurotic, unapologetic, hilarious collection.Pub Date: May 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16038-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
PROFILES
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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