I'm in the middle of three memoirs right now. I gotta tell ya this one is one of the most comedic rides I've taken in a long, long time. For all I thought I knew about one of my favorite horror and sci-fi writers, this book proves otherwise.
For example, I didn't know the guy was a professor of creative writing at a university. I didn't know he was in a rock band with six other headlining world-class writers, (you will NEVER guess who they are) I didn't know the extent of his history in underground indie mag culture.
Where it was a definite release to laugh until I cried at the revelation that he had a 200-pound teenaged babysitter who used to sit on him and fire off toxic farts, yelling "POW!!" and the memory of wiping his ass with poison Ivy after taking a dump in the woods, I also found some absolutely incredible finds of wisdom on the journey of becoming a writer, the hardship of the early days and fighting the dark inner voices. On his more instructional prose, he revisits quite a bit of the basics, what most of us covered years ago:
Tom Wolfe
John Steinbeck
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
Hemingway
Cormac McCarthy
George Orwell
But to go back and re-read these with a critical eye in composition is worth it! Although I find sitting through Hemingway nearly unbearable.
One of the biggest surprises of all in this read; was discovering just how talented his wife Tabitha King is as a classically trained poet. Her poem 'A Gradual Canticle For Augustine' will straight-up surprise you.
This is just a good read.