|
|
| photo: Tiffany Ireland | |
Jerry Mahoney is a comedy writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times and Westchester magazine and on LifetimeMoms.com. He writes the parenting blog Mommy Man, which was named one of the Top 10 Humor Blogs by babble.com. His memoir is Mommy Man: How I Went from Mild-Mannered Geek to Gay Superdad (Taylor Trade, May 2014).
On your nightstand now:
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. This is one of the most difficult books I've ever read, because it's so heartbreakingly bleak. Every time I close the book, I tell myself I can't take any more, but Barbara Demick's characterizations of her subjects are what bring me back. She does a wonderful job of humanizing the faceless masses the North Korean media show us marching in perfect step, and of telling us their incredible stories. I love books, either fiction or nonfiction, that introduce me to fascinating people I would never meet in real life.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Goonies, the novelization by James Kahn. I really wanted to choose something that would make me sound cool, but if I'm being honest, this was the book I loved the most as a kid. I bought it before the movie came out, swearing I wouldn't read a word until I saw the film. Chapter by chapter, I defied my pledge, sneaking a page here and there like a junkie, unable to avoid going back for another fix. I finally gave it away to my cousin so I wouldn't spoil the ending for myself. He lost it and replaced it with a copy of the novelization of The Jewel of the Nile, as if that could even compare. By then, the movie was gone from theaters and the book had disappeared from shelves. Unable to read the end, I did the next best thing: I wrote my own version, spending an entire summer writing my own kids adventure novel. (This is the book I talk about writing as a teenager in my memoir, Mommy Man.)
Your top five authors:
David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Roald Dahl, John Green and Mo Willems.
Book you've faked reading:
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I was about 100 pages into it and I brought it on a cross-country flight. As I read, I became convinced that the man sitting next to me was Jonathan Franzen himself. It was before all the Oprah hullabaloo, so all I had to go on was the picture on the dust jacket, which I kept sneaking peeks at. I was exhausted and desperately wanted to take a nap, but I was afraid of giving him the impression that his book put me to sleep. I kept nodding off, and then I'd have to turn the page so he didn't catch on that I wasn't really reading it. I finally got up the courage to ask him at the end of the flight if it was him. It wasn't, and I, of course, looked like a crazy person. I'm ashamed to admit I never finished the book.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure by Dave Gorman. The comic stunt memoir is a bit of an overserved genre these days, but what makes Gorman's book one of the best is the way he uses his stunt to meet and learn about a completely random collection of people he never would've known otherwise. He's a brilliant and hilarious observer of humanity, and the book is full of wonderful surprises.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Join Me! by Danny Wallace. The cover for the American paperback of this book from British comedian Danny Wallace is just a medium close-up of a nerdy-looking young guy (Wallace) holding a handmade sign that says "Join Me!" The book is a comic memoir about how he started a cult by taking out a newspaper ad that simply said, "Join me." I love the fact that that was all it took to get me to buy the book, too. It was a very fun read, but the best thing about it was how it introduced me to Wallace's BFF, Dave Gorman.
Book that changed your life:
The Kid by Dan Savage changed my life twice--first, by convincing me that I, too, could be a dad, and, years later, once I was a dad, by inspiring me to write about it. Never mind that it's just a great read: darkly funny, brutally honest and full of hope. It actually plays a crucial role in my memoir, because as much as I admired Savage's journey to parenthood, there came a point when I realized that I would be following a different path than he and his boyfriend did. That led to one of the main themes of my book: that every kid deserves his or her own special story of how they came to be your child, but that you never know exactly what your kid's will be until you first hold them in your arms.
Favorite line from a book:
"I am a 33-year-old man applying for a job as an elf." --David Sedaris, "The Santaland Diaries." Sedaris isn't just a master of comedy. He's also a genius at making himself likable on the page, at being able to win the reader over to his side with a single line. (And then do it over and over again.) By the time he drops this sentence, only a few paragraphs into his breakthrough essay, you know you want to go on this journey with him and you know you're going to enjoy the ride.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I loved this book so much I read it twice, then bought the audiobook, which is something I almost never do, just so I could get another perspective on it. I'm a sucker for first-person narratives when the writer is this gifted and the character is so interesting. Now there's a stage adaptation, and I'm going to be first in line when it comes to New York. Hopefully, there will be a musical, too, and a TV series, a ballet, a video game and a porn parody. Any chance I get to experience this beautiful story again, I will be there. Okay, I might skip the porn version.