It’s been at least six years since I was first recommended this book. At the time it could still have been considered contemporary; now it’s at the top tier to describe the popular memoir genre popular circa Y2K. Not unlike stumbling across Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential amidst a random stand at Printer’s Row Lit Fest, a cosmic event considering the time his show has recently consumed in my life, so too did I find this book, at the same exact stand. Ok, fine. I’ll finally give it a shot.
The first chapter involves his mother living with cancer.
I immediately feel another cosmic event. Well, not really. But it’s an astounding coincidence that piques my interest and I’m hooked. It becomes less personally relatable from then on, but the self-conscious writing style is right up my alley. The breaking of character dialogue, his younger brother becoming more poignant than himself, acting as the voice inside himself, the beyond honest (post-honest?) style of writing, the vulgar language, the overall…ok, this book pretty much hits all of my buttons (let’s call this style “me(ta)moir”). In particular, it’s the honesty. That one trait that will hold me back from being a good or even decent writer. I don’t anticipate writing novels (my attention span has unfortunately become Twitterized) but I want to at least write a fucking blog post, which only five people will even read, and just. be. honest.
