Never Mind, by Edward St. Aubyn

I was pretty excited when I picked up this book, the first of five in the Patrick Melrose novels. There was even a blurb on the back from an author I really like—Michael Chabon—reading, "One of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade." Boy, was I disappointed.

The story recounts a weekend gathering of three thoroughly unlikeable couples in the British upper class. Patrick Melrose is the young son of one of these sets of parents, abused by his domineering father and ignored by his submissive addict mother. As a contrast to the coarse characters, however, the writing is both poetic and sophisticated. "After a while he no longer recognized what he was thinking and, just as a shop window sometimes prevents the onlooker from seeing the objects behind the glass and folds him instead in a narcissistic embrace, his mind ignored the flow of impressions from the outside world and locked him into a daydream he could not have subsequently described." Flipping through the book finds passages like this on virtually every page. Despite the beautiful prose, though, I couldn't get past the cruelty of the people being described. I struggled to finish this book, and I don't think I'll be picking up the next one in the series anytime soon.

First Sentence:

At half-past seven in the morning, carrying the laundry she had ironed the night before, Yvette came down the drive on her way to the house.

Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern

I received Sh*t My Dad Says for Christmas this year; the Twitter feed is mildly amusing but after watching a couple episodes of the terrible TV show I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Luckily, the book is easily better than either of the other media forms the topic has taken. The stories around the various tweets give a depth and meaning that simply can’t be captured in 140 characters. Humor I expected, but the author’s connection to his father and the warmth in their relationship was surprising.

Having a couple of boys myself, two of the quotes in particular hit close to home. “You’re ten years old now, you have to take a shower every day....I don’t give a shit if you hate it. People hate smelly fuckers. I will not have a smelly fucker for a son.” “No. There’s no scenario where I’d eat a human being, so you can stop making them up and asking me, understood?” Halpern’s father apparently doesn’t have a filter, saying out loud exactly what every father of a boy must think from time to time.

First Sentence:

“Well, what the fuck makes you think Grandpa wants to sleep in the same room as you?”

Home Game, by Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis is a talented writer; both Moneyball and Liar’s Poker are well-written looks at complicated topics that are both informative and entertaining. Sadly, Home Game, his auto-biographical look at fatherhood, falls unexpectedly flat. Many of the anecdotes are quite funny; the story of his three-year-old girl cussing out a group of older boys at the top of her lungs in a public pool is hilarious. Unfortunately, many of the other bits come off as somewhat mean-spirited. “Memory loss is the key to human reproduction. If you remembered what new parenthood was actually like you wouldn’t go around lying to people about how wonderful it is, and you certainly wouldn’t ever do it twice.” If he feels this way about being a parent of a newborn, I’d hate to be around him when his kids hit their teen years!

When not cross with the world, Lewis comes off as somewhat sad. “The thing that most surprised me about fatherhood the first time around was how long it took before I felt about my child what I was expected to feel. Clutching Quinn after she exited the womb, I was able to generate tenderness and a bit of theoretical affection, but after that, for a good six weeks, the best I could manage was detached amusement. The worst was hatred.” I simply can’t relate to this sentiment, and find it horribly unfathomable. The birth of each of my boys are moments in my past I treasure, right up there with seeing my bride standing at the back of the church on our wedding day.

A quick read with some funny stories, but overall this was disappointing.

First Sentence:

We landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport a couple of days before Christmas.

The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer

I picked this up on a whim and am very glad I did. This was an intoxicating read (forgive the pun), the story of how a boy grew up with the dysfunctional patrons of a bar as father figures. His father left him at a young age, and as he grew up he increasingly turned to his uncle, a bartender, as a mentor and role-model. Spending time with his uncle meant spending time in the bar, and eventually he found himself drinking at the bar every night. There are no apologies, no excuses, and no sermons about the evils of drink; just a straightforward account of how the author became an alcoholic.

I liked this book for several reasons. First and foremost, the style is that of a guy telling a story at, well, a bar. Every character is a real character, every action a bit over-the-top, every story seeming just a bit embellished. It is a comfortable story, even when the topics being discussed are not. The author doesn’t apologize for his drinking or preach about how he quit. He presents the choices he made and why he made them, leaving the lessons learned as an exercise for the reader. I found this a powerful technique; this book got me thinking about my drinking habits much more than one telling me about the wonders of sobriety ever would.

My favorite quote (out of many great choices): “Every bar has some affinity for boxing, because drinkers and boxers sit on stools and feel woozy and measure time in rounds.” I’m not a huge fan of boxing, but virtually every fight I’ve seen has been in a bar surrounded by other casual fans. I’m reminded particularly of the 1996 Tyson-Seldon fight, the one that lasted about 90 seconds. I was in Lubbock and the Longhorns had just beat the Red Raiders in football. After the game we hit a bar near campus and at first the locals were not to thrilled to see a group of people wearing burnt orange. When the fights started later that night, though, instant camaraderie. Good times.

First Sentence:

If a man can chart with any accuracy his evolution from small boy to barfly, mine began on a hot summer night in 1972.

Raising Cole, by Marc Pittman with Mark Wangrin

This was a very difficult book to read. Not because of complicated sentence structure or an unnecessarily large vocabulary, but because of raw emotion. Cole Pittman was a football player at the University of Texas that was killed when he fell asleep at the wheel of his truck in 2001. His father wrote this story, describing both the amazingly close relationship they shared and the aftermath of his death. It is honest and poignant; I’ll admit I was literally brought to tears while reading the last couple of chapters. The main message of this the author tries to impart is simply to not leave anything unsaid. If you were to die tomorrow, are you sure that everyone you love knows that you love them? A hard question. I probably still haven’t come to terms with my fathers death a few years ago, and this brought a lot of those emotions back. There was too much unsaid between us when my dad died. I am the type to keep my feelings largely to myself; this book helped me to see I need to change that somehow.

The Pittman family uses two interesting concepts to maintain their unusually close relationships: Love Wars and Dead Man’s Talk. Love Wars are simply trying to outdo each other with gestures of affection, like driving 10 hours simply to meet for lunch. Dead Man’s Talk represents no-tell confessions, like talking to a dead man: “A dead man couldn’t repeat what was said. It would not make him angry or stick in his craw. It wouldn’t change an opinion or influence a friendship. It would be said, and it would disappear forever like a breath on a cold night.” Love Wars is a concept I grok and will certainly be using in my life. Dead Man’s Talk is more opaque to me, though; once a meaningful fact is known I don’t see how it can possibly not affect a relationship. Clearly it worked for Marc and Cole Pittman, though.

First Sentence:

It’s been more than three years since I buried my oldest son in the red Louisiana dirt near Minden.