Fiction ruined my family

 by Jeanne Darst. The memoir craze has left many writers ruing their happy, functional childhoods. Not Darst: her father was a failed novelist, her mother an alcoholic clinging to her socialite youth. That's enough fodder to keep Darst under publishing contract for decades. Her debut opens as the family moves from St. Louis to New York, where her father can focus on his latest book. Early chapters feel reminiscent of David Sedaris: off-kilter domestic scenes played for laughs. But Darst's humor gains bite as she reaches adulthood and begins to exhibit the worst traits of both parents as a stalled writer and a falling-down drunk. Darst is fearless in presenting herself as selfish, callous, and out of control, which is entertaining in a raunchy, R-rated, gross-out-comedy kind of way. At 30, Darst takes stock of her future: I'd be that aged temp . . . waiting for five o'clock to get blotto. So she sobers up, dials down the crazy (though not all the way), and redefines what it means to be an artist. A more reflective voice emerges, one capable of living with her past. --Booklist (Check Catalog)