So I guess because I pre-identified Davy Rothbart as a writer in the same vein of the other Davids/Daves (Sedaris and Eggers, respectively), I kind of locked myself in to a certain expectation of the writing, tone and overall gist of My Heart is an Idiot. And in many cases, it was true (hey, there's a review from Eggers right on the back cover, so this wasn't just me lumping them together. So there).
There were Sedaris' road-warrior hitchiking-esque stories of Rothbart's many encounters with strangers, which in my opinion, is the strength of the book. We all have had those one-off insane nights where the events as they pass could certainly feel impossibly uncanny, and straight out of a book or movie (for me, a road trip to Chicago during my senior year in college with Jenny, Parini, and Jenny comes to mind, where we chatted up our waiter at the ESPNZone restaurant and ended up spending the entire night at a house party of his friend's and watching the sun come up over Lake Michigan, eating blowpops, in one of the parks somewhere along Lake Shore Drive. But really, who goes to Chicago to go eat at the ESPNZone restaurant??). But these stories are told very well, and again, some seem so hard to believe, that it makes them that much more compelling.
But many of the stories focus on the author's complete obsession with falling in love and an non-existant ideal woman that he has created. No really, the woman is fictional. An entire story in the book is devoted to trying to will a fictional movie character to life. The attitude about this is completely fascinating to me, particularly to read it coming from a man. I know many many women who get all crazy obsessive when they meet and start dating a guy (maybe not necessarily when they first lay eyes on him): that he's the one, that felt more right than any other relationship before, that this is what they've been waiting for all along, etc etc. Similar sentiments are prevalent throughout the book.
I fully acknowledge that I don't necessarily spend significant amounts of time digging into the emotional persona of my male friends and their inner-feelings about love and relationships, but it just seemed very abnormal to me, coming from a guy. But I applaud Mr. Rothbart's honesty and willingness to make himself that vulnerable to every reader who picks up the book. It's not often that you can find a guy with that kind of passionate desire for mad love and also a big pair of cajones.
Overall, I'd highly recommend. The writing is fun and witty, and maybe because I lived in Ann Arbor for a while and grew up in Michigan, I appreciated many of the anecdotes even more (although, I have not ever been to Brewskies...although I'm suspiciously wondering if Brewskies is actually Frasier's and the name was changed). It's a quick read, and I don't think many who read it will be disappointed.
So now I'm on to Flannery O'Connor's, A Good Man is Hard to Find. I was a bit torn about which book to read next; I've had Machiavelli's, The Prince sitting on my shelf for a good year, and I'm just not ready to delve into a book that might require me to have a poli sci professor handy to work out some of the themes. But on the upside, as Russ pointed out, it's short. I guess I'll have it on deck next time. Later.
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