B'S BOOK CLUB

Short reviews of the recent books I've read. Probably not timely, certainly not fancy.

2006

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper - Diablo Cody

212 pages. My guess is, for most guys, naming a female stripper-turned-blogger-turned-memoirist as an inspiration is something of a no-no. But, really, if I were to keep private my admiration for Diablo Cody, I wouldn’t be able to wholeheartedly recommend her debut Candy Girl for the dozen or so Minnesotans who still haven’t read it. And that’d be a shame. So, consider me an oddity: I am a dude, signing the praises of a stripper-turned-blogger- turned-memoirist.

Candy Girl details a year in Cody’s life that begins with the then-innocent cubicle-queen ducking into a nearby strip joint to enter an Amateur Night contest. Drunk with exhilaration, she spends the next year of her life stripping at various locales around Minneapolis, eventually hanging up her pumps after particularly saucy stints at Sex World and Choice.

Now, I couldn’t care less about the sordid details behind the stripping scene, ditto the way the ladies are treated, how the clubs operate, etc. What kept me intrigued with Candy Girl is the stylish writing displayed by Cody. Each sentence is infused with distinctly visual, modern lingo. Explaining why she got into the biz, Cody writes, “I felt restless, desperately chasing a buzz like a kid sneaking a nip from Mom’s cooking sherry. I was approaching the dark side of my twenties, but I shook like a rattle, still felt like a teenager with fire ants in my Calvins.” When lamenting the interpersonal relations vibe on the stripping scene, she says, “Most veteran strippers are punch-drunk on Haterade, and they’d sooner dredge their Vuitton clutch in a cow pie before mustering a pixel of common courtesy toward their fellow woman.”

Throughout Candy Girl, Cody never wastes a word. In fact, if I were to lodge any complaint, it’d be that the book is at times too economical. There is very little emotional depth beyond the storytelling. On page 188, Cody’s gushing over a huge payday; but by page 192 she’s recounting her inevitable burnout. Examples such as this probably explain why, in the epilogue, Cody describes Candy Girl as a “sprawling pamphlet.”

Really, though, the uber-concision is but a quibble. In a culture where bloated, rambling novels rule the roost, Candy Girl’s humor and lyrical prose are refreshing indeed.

288 pages. I’m a sucker for all things hip-hop. The music, the fashion, the language…the entire culture fascinates me. That probably helps to explain my vast appreciation for Ethan Brown’s debut Queen Reigns Supreme, a non-fiction study about the immense influence Queens, NY has had on our society. The book, written in a no-frills, AP story-like manner, details the rise of the 1980s crack era, the inevitable fall that led most the of game’s players into hip-hop, and the surrounding effects of the intertwined culture.

The book starts out rather slow; Brown’s introduction of the main characters is more than a little confusing. The gist of the book’s beginning is, there was this one dude, a bad motherfucker who gave himself a crazy nickname, who worked the {such and such} block and made X amount of money per day. Then there was this other bad mofo, nicknamed {such-and-such} who worked the nearby {such and such} corner and made even more money. And another dealer, named…. Etcetera, etcetera. Establishing the many key personas leads to a confusing who’s-who in the ‘hood, but eventually the names become familiar and stories begin to unfold. In Brown’s exposé into the hip-hop culture, he details the back-stories behind many notable sagas etched into pop culture lore, including the beginning of Russell Simmons and RUN-DMC, why rappers hate the Sugarhill Gang, how Rick Rubin got his start, the death of 2Pac, seedy details of Jay-Z’s past, the death of Jam Master Jay, 50 Cent’s criminal background and hella more.

Queens Reigns Supreme is packed with informative insights of the hip-hop and ghetto scene, the stories providing the logic behind why the culture functions the way it does. The end result: a non-fiction book that’s as entertaining as it is educational. Highly recommended for anyone even remotely interested in the subject.

Catch - Will Leitch

304 pages. A tip, from me to you: never enter a bookstore without a backup plan. I recently sauntered into my neighborhood Barnes & Noble to pick up Will Leitch’s Life As A Loser (a collection of his hilarious online columns) before an upcoming vacation, but was informed that it was out of stock. Panic-stricken at the thought of an upcoming plane ride with no reading material, I stood frozen until the clerk mentioned that Leitch’s other book was in stock. “It’s called Catch,” he said while leading me to its location in the Teen Fiction section. Teen fiction? Leitch? Not possible, I thought as I carried the book to the register. Had to be mis-categorized.

Or not.

Catch is, in fact, straight up teen fiction, and hence, out of my realm of enjoyment. It’s a first-person account of a small-town high school jock (the first-person approach resulting in a rather basic writing style) as he prepares to leave for college in the big city. He suffers through the standard high school trepidations that stem from the ever-daunting move from home; issues with friends, girlfriend, parents, etc. It reads like a cross between Matt Christopher and Judy Blume. I finished the book in a few sittings but, considering the adolescent subject matter, can’t really recommend to adults. I suspect most teenaged bookworms would dig the story though.

Dry - Augusten Burroughs
320 pages. Dry is Augusten Burroughs’s follow-up memoir to his popular Running With Scissors, detailing the all-grown-up Burroughs and his struggles with alcoholism. At the book’s onset Burroughs is a successful NYC copywriter with a bottle-of-Dewars-a-day habit, but is soon forced into rehab by his employers. Dry spans Burroughs’s one-month rehab stint as well as the year or so afterwards as he attempts to adjust to an alcohol-free life in the Big Apple.

The book’s lyrical style mirrors the frank tone of Scissors, but the content can’t compare, making for an underwhelming effect. Burroughs’s super-simplistic writing results in the majority of the book reading like an email to friends and family. The book hums along at a speedy pace and generates a steady output of chuckle-worthy observations, but Burroughs’s experience, most notably his insights into alcoholism, feels fairly generic. I was engaged throughout, but my feeling after finishing the book was of slight disappointment. Solid but unremarkable.

My Friend Leonard - James Frey
368 pages.Leonard is the follow-up to Pieces, detailing Frey’s friendship with his mobster boss friend Leonard, who he met in rehab. Leonard is outgoing, bighearted and filthy rich, and saves Frey’s life many times over with his unending generosity. The book is almost certainly full of gratuitous fabrications, but it doesn’t bother me as much as it did with Pieces. Leonard is less about bravado and overcoming addiction as it is a tale of friendship (albeit in hardly believable circumstances). I enjoyed the book but I wouldn’t recommend it to friends.

The Columnist - Jeffrey Frank
240 pages. One of my favorite books of the past few years. I first heard of The Columnist through McSweeney’s Recommends, in which Dave Eggers describes the book as “short, brilliant and hilarious.” And dammit if he isn’t right on. I can’t think of three words that better encapsulate the book’s essence. And not only does Eggers sing the book’s praises, he mentions being given the recommendation by David Sedaris. So there you have it: if my blessing doesn’t carry enough weight, consider the opinions of my peeps Eggers and Sedaris.

The Columnist is a fake memoir of D.C. newspaper columnist Brandon Sladder, whose personality is a cross between the turd-stirring Rush Limbaugh and naïve kowtowing of Sid Hartman. Sladder is an utter jackass, but Frank never turns him into a cartoon; the brilliance of The Columnist is in its subtlety. The result is an imaginative, laugh-out-loud effort that I breezed through in a few blissful hours. I wish I’d written this book.

2005

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
448 pages. I read Pieces before the shit hit the fan, so I’ll attempt to recap my thoughts on the book before the Smoking Gun article and Oprah’s subsequent public bitch-slapping.

I remember being captivated by Pieces from its first page, in which Frey wakes up on a plane with missing teeth, a broken nose, blood on his clothing and no recollection of where he’s been or where he’s headed. The scenes get worse before they get better. Frey’s stream-of-consciousness writing style suits the surreal subject matter, but it soon enough wears thin. He never uses quotes, rarely employs commas, and capitalizes random mid-sentence words. Thus, the only thing Pieces had going for it was the powerful story, which was undeniably mesmerizing. Now that it’s been summarily categorized as sensationalized BS, I can’t imagine the book providing much enjoyment. It was a gripping memoir, but as fiction, just so-so.

Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
320 pages. Running with Scissors is the memoir that put Augusten Burroughs on the literary map. His matter-of-fact retelling of one of the zaniest childhoods imaginable was all the rage a while back, eventually being optioned into a movie (currently in production).

Scissors is written in the straight-forward vein that has become Burroughs’s trademark. He writes about alarmingly deplorable events as if they’re everyday occurrences (picture a less-talented David Sedaris telling more-interesting stories). His childhood allegedly included mentally unstable parents, fake suicide attempts, pedophilia and a nutso shrink-turned-guardian, yet Burroughs’s blunt prose portrays a wide-eyed naiveté that elicits sympathy as well as laughs.

Burroughs is a candid raconteur -- no fanciness or profundity to be found -- whose style lives and dies on the content (a review from Boston Herald writer Stephen J. Lyons put it perfectly: "the writing advice 'show, don't tell' is taken too literally"). Fortunately, the tales in Scissors are so crazy, so astounding, that the book soars despite. Highly enjoyable.

Killing Yourself To Live - Chuck Klosterman
Click here to read review.

Now I Can Die In Peace - Bill Simmons
Click to read full review

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