Literature

Me, me, me.

Scott Dickensheets

This photo says a lot about writer Steve Almond’s latest book—here’s a man willing to upstage his own baby for the sake of a (visual) one-liner. That sort of playful narcissism veins (Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions (Random House, $21.95, *** 1/2), a collection of Almond’s nonfiction. No occasion is so serious—say, a sad, lengthy postmortem on the meaning of Kurt Vonnegut—that it can’t be spangled with glib asides in which Almond marvels at his own self-absorption. As shtick it’s rarely enlightening but mostly harmless; occasionally it’s grating. But soon you are hydroplaning over those passages because the rest of the book is pretty good. The Vonnegut piece, for instance, isn’t fussily academic; it proceeds from a fierce love of KV’s novels, mixed with Almond’s account of trying to meet the great man. Just the sort of thing a non-professorial, real-world reader can get into. His account of being a Boston-based “Red Sox antichrist” is funny and insightful; so too his account of battling a hostile lit-blogger fixated on him. And the closing chapters on fatherhood kind of redeem the confessional gimmickry. On the other hand, the piece on lobster pad Thai is snacky but inconsequential. (Made me hungry, though; that’s something.) Not long ago, writer Christina Nehring published a call for the American essay to abandon genteel triviality and reengage with the larger issues of actual life. I’m not sure Almond is the first writer I’d send to the mound in response, but he does bring a rude vigor to the form that certainly seems like a long step in the right direction.

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