MADreads

Oh, come on, ask him!

October 31st, 2007 Sarah - Alicia Ashman

Steve Almond’s new essay collection, Not That You Asked: Rants, Exploits, and Obessions, is awesome.  I loved it.  It made me happy.

I mean it.  I don’t know what it is about Steve Almond, but he makes my normally cynical and demanding soul (especially where books are concerned) unkink a bit and actually laugh in spite of itself.  How could I not laugh when I’m reading things like his author’s note:

“I’ve changed a few names, mostly of old girlfriends.  All the rest is true.  Radically subjective, whacked by memory, but true.”

Or when he introduces his essay/love letter to Kurt Vonnegut by referring to his own senior thesis on him:

“I devoted most of my senior year in college to a detailed study of his work, writing a thesis titled ‘Authorial Presence in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut,’ a copy of which I recently asked my mother to send me, in her capacity as Chief Curator of the Steve Almond Archives, a capacity, I should add, that she views as the necessary burden of having raised an itinerant narcissist.” (p. 15.)

I admit it.  I am a sucker for guys who seem to appreciate their mothers.  So yes.  Steve Almond has been reviewed more harshly by some, who think he’s a bit too fascinated by some of his own body parts, or who think his opening letter to Oprah is a bit harsh.  But he won’t be getting any harsh words from me.  He made me laugh.  He made me feel not hopeless for a little while.  I’ll take that any time, whether I asked or not.

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction