Dave Barry's memoir was tough to rate. I grew up reading Dave
Barry. I owned many of his books (I still own four, and that was a vast
paring-down) and read them many, many times. I got to interview him when
I did a story about Gene Weingarten for a writing class and it was an
absolute thrill for me. (He was lovely, and in retrospect I appreciate
that he took the time to talk to me, someone who was just doing a class
assignment, not even something that would be published.) He liberally
quotes from his own material throughout this book and I recognized a lot
of it.
That both is and isn't a complaint, but it did
ultimately bump this from a 3.5 to a 3. This book is called a memoir. We
get chapters on his family (which is genuinely illuminating) and
education, but a lot of the book covers his career. I liked some of the
more behind-the-scenes stuff when he discussed his writing, particularly
about how in the 1980s, a humor journalist could, for example, rent a
helicopter for a few hours in New York to get a particular
photo--without prior approval. A lot of the names are familiar to me,
many because they eventually wound up at The Washington Post and
getting glimpses into the logistics of his work was enjoyable. The story
of him finding out he won the Pulitzer was adorable. And while I
vaguely knew about his early, pre-humor column career, I enjoyed
learning more.
That said, I felt like reasonably large chunks of
this were rehashes of things that he wrote about over the years. The
kinds of stories he wrote, the things his readers were passionate about
(did I wind up with the Neil Diamond song "I Am, I Said" in my head? I
did), some highlights over the years. I mean, true, I didn't know about
his involvement in the popularization of Talk Like a Pirate Day (though
I'm not particularly surprised by it). But a lot of the book felt almost
like an annotated greatest hits to me.
Which I'm honestly not
totally against! Like I said, I read a LOT of his stuff growing up and
it was nostalgic to re-read. I had forgotten about Judi (who I believe
he referred to as his research department), and was delighted when he
mentioned Earnest (his dog) and Zippy (his small back-up dog). I always
loved his dog columns. And his columns about book tours, which he
mentions here. He also does discuss his post-column career of writing
fiction, including a fun story about a trip to Russia.
I didn't love his chapter on politics. I did
like the first part of the chapter, where he wrote about being sent to
cover primaries and conventions and what the actual experience was like
for him and other journalists. But once he got into the specific
elections...pass. Particularly his concluding belief that the problem is
that journalists were too hard on Trump (who, for the record, he does
not like); he's one of those who thinks that the media leaned too
anti-Trump and it turned people off. He does mention the other
argument--namely, that journalists who were anti-Trump went too easy on
him in an attempt to appear fair, which firmly is where I land--but
doesn't think it. And honestly, I didn't want or need any discussion of
Trump in this book.
What I did want was more insight into Barry's
actual life. Early in the book, after the chapter on school, he
mentions getting married, then says he's been married three times, takes
the blame for his divorces, and then says that he's not going to talk
about his marriages. He mentions briefly the birth of his son Rob (and
gave a life update on him, which I appreciated, having read a bunch
about him growing up), but his personal life is basically not a part of
this memoir at all. He mentions things like moving and picking job
offers and there's just nothing about what anything meant for him as a
person. We get a little insight into his decision to retire from his
weekly column, but that's about it. I kind of get it, but also, I spent
years reading about his wife Beth, so I was bummed. I don't need the
sordid details, but just more about his non-work life.
It comes
down to me wanting this to include more of Dave Barry, the person, and
less Dave Barry, the humor columnist. Still, if you're a fan of his,
you'll enjoy this walk down memory lane.
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