The following is a review of the recent Teardrops book release, 'Help Yourself Help Yourself' by Patrick deWitt. It is taken from the blog 'Moonlight Ambulette', and I want to say "Thank you" to the woman who wrote it.
"I haven't been feeling very bloggy lately, but I did read a really funny little book over the weekend I thought I would mention. It's called Help Yourself Help Yourself, and it's by a fellow called Patrick DeWitt, and it's the first book published by a great record label out of LA called Teenage Teardrops. (Check out the sad/gross cartoon on the site!) The introduction calls it a "weekend book" and it sure is -- could be and in fact was read in a pair of train rides bookending a Saturday outing (Did I mention it is teeny and fits in cute little clutch? Not that this is why a person should read a book but hey, it sure didn't hurt). It's funny and sad and makes you want to carry around a notebook and write things down and write letters to everyone you know and draw pictures of sad people seen on the subway. Sort of Lydia Davis meets John Hodgman for the ADD set (it's barely 50 pages). There are stories of hauntings and stories of silent fights with spouses and stories of certain svengalis. The last story is a paragraph is a plaintive ode to friendship and loneliness. In fact, on the whole, though it is, as he writes, "a book of voices," it strikes me as being a lonely book -- a book about the loneliness felt in the midst of voices."
This also from the introduction: "Help Yourself Help Yourself: Becuase nobody wants to take of you. Because do you know how disgusting you are? For a fee and the promise of future of friendship, I will tell you. And I like you right back; after all I'm disgusting too."
Posted by Cali at November 8, 2007 04:55 PM