“Like a literary Louis C.K.--Skibell is not shy about exposing the foibles of the man he has become, or his clumsy pursuits of happiness.” —Bret Wood, writer/director
Did Joseph Skibell’s father trick him when he offered his beautiful guitar and then delivered a not-so-beautiful one? Can it be that the telemarketer calling at dinnertime is a thoughtful, sensitive person also looking for a Utopian world? Can a father have any control over his teenage daughter’s sex life? Can a son have control over his father’s expectations? The award-winning writer ponders these and other bewildering questions in his first nonfiction book.
Joseph Skibell is a dreamer, an innocent. As a professor, he may spend time on Big Thoughts, but it’s the small moments in life that he addresses in these essays. With disarming honesty, he gives us an intimate glimpse into his life. True, some of these incidents might make him look like a fool, but that only serves to make him more human. The pleasure in these pieces is accepting, with Skibell, that life is made up of little annoyances, fantasies, imaginings, and delusions--and these are what make us who we are.
“The voice is so beguiling, the tone so sweet and hilarious, you quickly realize that you are in the hands of a master . . . Mr. I. B. Singer, meet Mr. Twain. This is a book to be prized in the way readers prize the work of Charles Portis.” —James Magnuson, author of Famous Writers I Have Known
“These wise and humane offerings aren’t stories; they’re musical notes, from a master composer . . . that will linger in your memory long after reading, as the best music always does.” —Jeremy Dauber, author ofThe Worlds of Sholem Aleichem
