The World According to Garp – 4/5 Stars I am trying to figure out books from the late 1970s and early 1980s, because it’s like the first time that authors really wanted to dig into sexual politics in some ways that are interesting, definitely alarming, but also handled with a kind of lack of care, or certainly a different context. This book was a huge hit when it came out and won several awards. It’s generally very good, but there’s a weird weird weird scene […]
“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark.”
“I don’t care if I’m the one who captures him. I just want bracelets on his wrists and a cell door slamming behind him.” Michelle McNamara died in April 2016 halfway through the writing of I’ll be Gone in the Dark but her husband, Patton Oswalt, editors and research assistants completed her book and published in February of this year. Two months later, on April 24th, the Golden State Killer was found using a DNA profile uploaded to a genealogy website. There was a lot of hubbub […]
Long Process, Fast DNA
When I was contemplating subscribing to Scribd’s audio book library, the book that sold me was Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone In The Dark. I expected to enjoy listening to the book, narrated by Gabri Zachman, I did not expect the book to make me miss my mother and cry. She was both proud of the fact that she had raised a strong-minded daughter and resentful of my sharp opinions.“ That dichotomy was my relationship with my mother and I did not expect to hear […]
This is as much a self-portrait of an obsessive mind as it is a true crime book.
I will not let this review defeat me! I will not! I have so much to say about this book I don’t know how to organize it, and I’m still not sure what I’m going to rate it even as I type this; and I’m still freaked out by it, and still sad, and I want the Golden State Killer caught, but what if he’s dead?? If he’s dead, we’re never going to catch him!! ARGGGGh. Okay, so I’ve been looking forward to this book […]
Patton Oswalt is a Better Comedian than Memoirist
I expected to adore this book. It’s Patton Oswalt — who I love — talking about film, one of my favorite subjects. But it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Oswalt talks about film a fair amount, but usually as a springboard to talking about himself and his career as an actor and stand-up comedian. When he came to Los Angeles, he became obsessed with the Beverly Movie Theater and saw his frequent visits as a form of education. He began as an aspiring director, […]
Shooting up Celluloid
This will be either the most interesting or the most boring addiction memoir you’ve ever read. I can’t promise it ever gets “harrowing,” but I can promise that I tried- I really tried- to make it funny. In the mid to late 1990s Patton Oswalt, who had recently moved to Los Angeles, had a debilitating addiction. It wasn’t booze or drugs but it was equally crippling- Movies. More specifically, although not exclusively, classic films; he had five ‘encyclopedias’ of Film Noir and Cult movies that […]