My new book is called You Are a Complete Disappointment - those were my father's last words to me, literally from his death bed. It was quite a scene.
I had traveled across the country to see him, on Father's Day, and when I got there he told me he had something important to tell me. And that was it: You Are a Complete Disappointment.
There was more: I am a loser, not as smart as I think I am, and also, the only person in the family who is fat.
It's ok to laugh. Everyone does. Because the story is incredible for its timing and irony, and it is easier to respond to the epic, tragi-comic Jewish guilt, than to try to parse the cruelty and meanness the guy felt compelled to deliver with his last breath.
It was also a gift - he gave me this barroom jewel of a story to tell, You Are a Complete Disappointment! Like what, a Mick Jagger solo record??
Since my book came out, I have gotten tons of mail from strangers, telling me how much my it has meant to them. They laugh with me -- there are lots of funny stories about growing up in New Jersey in the 1970s, and just how dangerous every single moment of life was back then, from our incredibly violent and thoroughly unsupervised street hockey games with new rules inspired by the film Roller Ball, to the second hand smoke in the hospital where they dragged you to get stitched up. And they cry -- I have received a dozen emails from men who said they embarrassed themselves crying on airplanes while reading my book, and let me tell you, there is no greater praise a writer can receive.
Except for this: A neighbor of mine stopped me in the supermarket to tell me he had just read my book. He was having problems with his kid, who wasn't doing his chores and was fucking up, not doing his homework, and he was going to yell at him. But after reading my book he changed his mind and told his kid he loved him instead.
So I saved a kid from being yelled at. I am marking that in the WIN column.
My father was a dick, a snob, an emotional bully and a narcissist, extremely cruel to me, and very naturally the great villain of this story. But what the book is really about is compassion, and finding love and light in unexpected places, and being the person you want to be, not the person you were told you should be. It's about not letting expectations destroy your ability to be happy in the present.
My family, what is left of them, wants no part of it. Their experience growing up was much different than mine -- no dreams of becoming artists or musicians for them - my brothers became a lawyer and a Wall Street macher.
I had planted my stake in the danger zone. I lived for rock'n'roll and the avant garde, for books and poetry. But by the time the old man died, I had toured the world with my band, had been lecturing at the New York Public Library on freedom of speech and censorship, had published several well-received books (not to mention a ghost job that paid a boodle and made it onto the New York Times Bestseller list) -- and I was having a gas.
People don't like to read about themselves. Even if you have nice things to say, they get really weird about it. They will post the most personal shit on facebook, including totally embarrassing photos of their kids, but books, apparently, are taken more seriously than social media. I only wish that was born out in sales!
One brother refuses to talk to me about my book. When my book tour came to his town, he fled. My other brother will not talk to me about our father or family, the only thing he took away from my book was a joke about the sexual implications of the gum we got when we were kids, the kind that was filled with liquid that squirted in your mouth when you bit on it. "Cum-Gum" we called it when we were eight, without a clue as to what it meant. "That's great!" He says. Any move towards emotional content gets the brush off.
My father's wife - his widow - has broken off communication completely, refusing to answer calls or emails, even about the death of another family member, whom I loved dearly. It is cold blooded.
I was hoping my family would learn more about me through my book -- emotionally abused older brother comes to terms with lifetime of mental abuse, spends years on a shrink's couch, overcomes fears, let's go of anger, becomes who he wants to be, tells funny stories about zombies and wrestlers, etc.
Many readers, I am humbled to say, are finding inspiration in You Are a Complete Disappointment. Apparently, a lot of people were put down by their parents. It's sad, but there it is.
I wish my brothers could learn from my book, and let me share what I have learned through the journey of writing it. But some people are afraid of learning about themselves. I may call out my old many for being a prick, but that is just my story. I would like to hear theirs. All I can promise is that mine is honest, which, as a memoirist, is all I really have.