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摘要
摘要
A hilarious book of musings on an ineluctable fact--Generation X is all grown up--by the popular author of Entry-Level Life and The Nearly-Wed Handbook. This is an irrepressibly hilarious account of unwitting maturity, rendered in short, snappy essays spun from personal confessions.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
These likable, well-crafted Gen-X essays explore the surface disillusionment and middle-class compromises of growing older. With comic skill, Zevin (The Nearly-Wed Handbook; Entry-Level Life) takes a sentimental first-person approach to suburban adult dilemmas such as wine tastings, lawn care, the starter home and the contrast between the freewheeling college semester abroad and the fearful, sensible 30-something European vacation. Each chapter is a confession, e.g., I played golf; I joined a health club; and I have dabbled in the world of stress management. Zevin is simultaneously satisfied with his grown-up status and piqued about the changes it has brought: The way I figure it, all my friends were pretty much in the same economic boat when we were first starting out, falling into the tax bracket officially known as piss-poor.' Then some of us stopped being piss-poor. Some of us even stopped being cautiously comfortable.'Some of us actually become fabulously well-to-do.'Those of us who wrote this book do not fall into that last tax bracket, much to our chagrin. This has made it somewhat challenging to socialize with those of them who do. His book sticks mainly to the surface inconveniences endured by everyone he knows, and largely skips the scarier, more abstract questions that are sending his generational cohorts for an existential loop loneliness, mortality and the meaning of things. As in many works that come to terms with losing youth forever, there's an otherworldly sad song humming beneath the levity of the prose. Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. (On sale June 11) Forecast: Zevin is an established freelancer who has published in Rolling Stone, Details and Spy and is a comic correspondent for NPR's WBUR. His book should do well in Cambridge, Mass. where he lives and in young cities like New York, San Francisco and Chicago. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Even the friskiest satirists of Gen X seem to have realized that they too are subject to aging, the raw material for every comic writer's stock in trade. Here, journeyman humorist, campus lecturer, and radio commentator Zevin takes his turn at trying on an ill-fitting mask of maturity. Acting grown up, Zevin (Entry-Level Life, not reviewed) has a wife, a dog, and long pants. Indeed, pants serve as the dominant theme in these antic essays. Sweat pants, corduroys, Levis, relaxed-fit jeans, and diverse trousers du jour are dropped, so to speak, at various opportunities in the text. And why not? Plural at one end and singular at the other, pants are admittedly funny. Zevin's diverting humor flows easily, from his efforts to prepare interesting material to present in sessions with his shrink to his plans to acquire a Roth IRA like all the other grown-ups . . . as soon as he figures out what a Roth IRA is. Like the other big kids, he tries his hand at golf, sailing on the Charles River, and even teaching. He attends a kiddy etiquette class. (Happily, it doesn't moderate his language, which remains boisterous Gen-X palaver.) He chronicles his coming of age in a series of confessions: his fondness for a home appliance, attendance at a wine-tasting, and similar nasty revelations. He's a coffee hound. He owns a Zagat Survey. He's learned not to eat a microwaved burrito before exercise class. He even considers (in a monologue that sounds like a demented version of "Soliloquy" from Carousel) how it might be to be a father. He claims, as "a professional shut-in, or self-employed person' " to be "exempt from all dress codes." But that only brings us back to pants. A pointed guide to growing up that will be funny to those who have accomplished it (more or less), as well as those who have yet to attempt it.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Generation X is now showing its age. It didn't happen all at once. At first, Zevin (Entry-Level Life) just played a little golf and joined a health club. But before he knew it, he was worrying about his lawn, hiring a maid, and going to wine-tastings. In these hilarious essays, most published before in the Boston Phoenix, Zevin chronicles his slow but steady descent into adulthood. Each brief essay is begun with a confession. He became a "pet person." His social circle "has shriveled and shrunk." And, in the final essay, he confesses to a "little" midlife crisis. Baby boomers--still calling themselves "middle aged" as they limp toward 60--won't get most of these essays, and may not believe a midlife crisis is possible for those in their thirties. But for those--and there are many of them--who are too old for the new Woodstock and were too young for the first one, these essays are an absolute comic treasure, offering solidarity, and even a little advice on growing old gracefully. --John Green
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
With this new work, Zevin firmly positions himself as a humorist for the next generation in its doomed struggle to sidestep midlife. Zevin (The Nearly-Wed Handbook, Entry-Level Life) here documents exactly when he first realized that he was uncool (i.e., getting older). In 24 chapters, which are dubbed "confessions" and have titles such as "I Take Pride in My Lawn" and "I Am a Figure of Authority," Zevin lets us in on those epiphanic moments when he first realized that he was maturing. He surprises again and again with analogies and metaphors composed of completely unrelated (and hilarious) imagery. The Gen-Xers are out there, waiting for a book just like this to come along and explain this aging thing in the appropriately sardonic hue. More genteel readers may be put off by the less-than-socially-acceptable euphemisms ("the joy of getting baked," "the enjoyable afternoon handjob"), but these will only add to the enjoyment for most. We all know this guy: he's Dave Barry with an attitude, and he gives us one heck of a good time in 192 pages. A totally optional gotta-have, this will be one fun summer read. Recommended for all libraries. Angela M. Weiler, SUNY at Morrisville Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.