Sara Barron (People Are Unappealing) comes off as one of those friends who is blunt, honest and refreshingly candid. She makes you laugh because she says the things you might have thought but never had the gumption to verbalize. The Harm in Asking, her second essay collection, brings together those verbalizations about the weird, hilarious, silly, odd little moments that make up her everyday life and, by extension, all of our lives.
Barron--a frequent host of the Moth's live storytelling event in New York City and a contributor to Showtime's This American Life and NPR's Weekend Edition--writes about all sorts of topics that might cross our brainpans: k.d. lang, mayonnaise, male catalogue models. In regard to smoking pot in college, she writes, "I would hallucinate any number of the following: 1) That my throw pillow had come to life. 2) That I was a duck. 3) That I was on a boat decorated in an 18th-century baroque style." When working at a fancy restaurant, "I was expected to serve these rolls with fork and spoon, and the challenge of this posed to my physical dexterity was on par with serving a tray of tennis balls with a pair of chopsticks."
Her takes on loves and loves lost, city living and the trials and tribulations of being a human being will invite comparisons to essayists like David Sedaris, Jonathan Ames and Sloane Crosley. Not bad company, and all safe bets if you want a good chuckle and some joy in knowing we're all a little nuts. --Jonathan Shipley, freelance writer