If this is, as stated, a fictionalized memoir by the San Francisco writer, it covers only about seven years of his youth, and the the best word for its first person singular narrative is bizarre.
Both midwest parents die of cancer within five weeks when the narrator is nineteen and he is left to care for his seven year old brother in California, with some help from his older sister. The title seems to be a mockery of the resultant chaos, mostly based in the 1990s.
There a few page-long sentences, and far to much vulgar language with up to ten F words with exclamation marks on some pages. The 70 page interview questions and answers as he applies for a role on a MTV’s series is disjointed and a bit silly. The chapter in which he and other hippies try to make a go of a radical magazine they call Might is no better.
The fanciful dreamy imaginings of the future for the author are very unrealistic, and his fears seem schizophrenic and make no sense: “I feel wretched much of the time, know in my heart that because I do not make him breakfast and drive him to school, he will grow up to skin rabbits, and recreate with crossbows and paint guns.”
The chapter planning the faked death of a movie star to mock the meaning of fame and celebrity does raise interesting questions about why people seek fame and influence even as the author is doing so himself at the expense of the said star.
I often fail to understand what others find appealing in books, especially some influential reviewers. This is no exception. Don’t waste your time on it.
1/5
Thanks, Jean.
The Passionate Reader 