Review by Booklist Review
Well, it's about time. At the age of 77, Pulitzer Prize--winning humor writer and novelist Barry has written a memoir. And it's a hell of a lot of fun. It's got its serious side--the early sections, in which he writes about his family and about his early struggles to figure out who he was, are rather touching--but it's mostly a funny look at the life of a guy who (as he says) writes booger jokes for a living. He talks about some of his most well-known newspaper columns, how it feels to be hated by Neil Diamond's fans, winning a major award (and wondering whether he deserved it), playing in a rock band with Stephen King, and watching an actor playing a guy named "Dave Barry" in a sitcom very loosely based on his life. He seems genuinely humble, genuinely astonished at how he's made an entire career out of writing funny stuff, and genuinely a nice guy. Hilariously funny, too. And we're not making this up.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Pulitzer-winning humorist Barry (Swamp Story) looks back at his childhood hijinks, journalistic exploits, and notable columns in this revealing if bumpy memoir. Aiming to account for what led him to "fame and fortune," he starts with his Presbyterian minister father and darkly comic mother. Amusing anecdotes about his parents ("Don't drown, kids!" his mother shouted "in the cheerful voice of a fifties TV-commercial housewife" as her children went for a swim) give context to Barry's natural comedic impulse and bring a levity that counterbalances otherwise harrowing recollections of his father's alcoholism and his mother's suicide. Barry also offers a riotous chronicle of his rise in journalism, from chasing two-bit local stories about "an unusually large zucchini" to writing an anything-goes weekly humor column at the Miami Herald. Recalling how he gave "bat urine" as a tasting note at a Waldorf Astoria sommelier contest and paid $8,000 to rent a helicopter for the perfect shot of the 1987 Long Island garbage barge, Barry captures a fantastically uninhibited "Golden Age of Journalism Expense Accounts." Selections from Barry's columns sometimes serve to bolster his recollections--like his final devastating meeting with his mother--but more often bog the narrative down, particularly a punishing chapter dedicated to his coverage of every presidential election from 1984 to 2020. It makes for an uneven mix of heartfelt reflection and greatest hits compilation. (May)
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