by Dave Barry
First published 2025
Dave Barry opens his memoir in a childhood where entertainment meant throwing rocks and nuclear preparedness meant ducking under desks. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Barry earned his literal class clown title in high school before heading to college as an English major who spent more time in a rock band than reading literature. His career meandered from a small Pennsylvania newspaper, where he learned never to mistake geese for ducks, to corporate consulting work trying to teach business people clarity. Eventually he landed at The Miami Herald under a boss who encouraged him to mock anything amusing. Barry alienated Neil Diamond fans and the entire state of Indiana, but he also built a devoted readership that fed him stories about exploding toilets and dangerous Pop Tarts. His telemarketer crusade succeeded so well that the telemarketing association stopped answering its own phones. Through presidential campaigns, book writing, and performing with Bruce Springsteen in a literary rock band, Barry followed his Midwestern parents' core lesson about never taking life too seriously.
Genres: humor, autobiography, memoir, comedy
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Indiana, Miami, Pennsylvania
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
244 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster