A Memoir of a Man, His Mom, and Mileage

I love offbeat book titles. Ever since a publisher offered me a copy of Living With Killer

Bees at a library conference, I'm always on the lookout for the oddball. There are some real doozies out there, including Everything I Know About Women, I Learned From My Tractor.  (Check out more here.)  While scanning a forthcoming book list, Michael Ian Black's memoir title caught my eye.  I know this sounds strange, but this is one of the first books I've read that "looks" like its author.

 

Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies, Mostly Mine (but also my mom's, which I know sounds weird) by Michael Ian Black, Gallery Books, 2016

When someone writes a memoir, they either choose an outstanding time in their life and share that "Oh, wow!" moment or they take something mundane and give it great meaning.  Michael Ian Black does a little of both, and the result is a sincere story of a man/boy coming into his middle-age.  Using his mother's cancer as a touchstone, Black provides a straightforward review of his life without so much as arching a comedic eyebrow. (His career as a comedian/comedic actor is barely touched on; he focuses more on his role as a writer.) He examines being raised by lesbians, his interfaith marriage, being a dad, his stint in a punk band, and why one should not picking a fight with another author, even an imaginary feud.  Throughout the book, Black discusses becoming a runner, something he decided to do for health reasons, despising it at first, but ultimately coming to terms with it.  The book is sweet without being mawkish and funny when it needs to be, leaving the reader nodding the head in recognition, especially if one is a member of the "sandwich generation."