Michael Jamin’s collection of personal essays is a tour of his life in many ways which has elements of memoir in its self-examination but is also full of humour throughout. In some ways, it reads like a performance so I wasn’t surprised when I got to the end and discovered that Jamin is actually doing a talkback to coincide with this book so my impression was apt. As someone whose occupation is screenwriter, it perhaps is not surprising that there is awareness of theatricality present.
When I started reading, I knew that I was going to enjoy it from Jamin’s writing style. His voice is clear and, immediately in my mind, from the flow and the ideas and the tone, I decided that it would be a four star read. You will see however that I have given it five stars and this is because something shifted as I read it. I felt like the early chapters were sometimes a little glib, maybe more self-conscious and not in a way that felt sincere and so, they made me feel a little uncomfortable. I could probably put my finger on it more clearly if I revisited those chapters but it is of no real matter. Because from “The Ghoul” on, a story about a neighbour who dies who the author has never really known, my reading of the book became warmer. I devoured Jamin’s book from this point onwards.
The book has been structured into essays and each essay covers an incident in the author’s life. They have interesting and funny titles, filled with word play like “A Plague Upon Your House”, about the pandemic and “Escape from Kelly Jelly Belly” which you can find out about for yourself, and Jamin’s style is filled with jokes and lines that will make you laugh throughout. It is really fun to read.
However, it’s not all about puns and wit; there is a lot of looking back into childhood, adolescence and young adulthood here as well as introspection and self-examination in adulthood. Jamin holds himself and others up for scrutiny and he admits himself, that some of the chapters are apologies for things that he has done, although he makes no apology for writing about them, merely stating that we all act horribly sometimes, which is very true.
I rarely laugh out loud at a book but this one definitely tickled me.
Scuffed Granny 