Tim Kreider

A New York Times political cartoonist and writer presents a collection of his most popular essays and drawings about life and government hypocrisy, exploring the darkly comic aspects of such topics as falling in love with unlikeable people, managing a friend with outspoken political views and reacting to a long acquaintance's sex-change operation. By the creator of The Pain--When Will It End?

Essays and Cartoons

We Learn Nothing

*A People Top 10 Book of 2018* The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women. Psychologists have told him he’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist—one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider’s humor). “Beautifully written, with just enough humor to balance his spikiness” (Booklist), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You focuses Tim’s unique perception and wit on his relationships with women—romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it’s the most enduring relationship he’ll ever have. “In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris” (The New York Times Book Review), each of these pieces is “heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious” (Judd Apatow), and collectively they cement Kreider’s place among the best essayists working today.

Essays

I Wrote This Book Because I Love You

Introducing Sociology

Shawn Smucker

Manheim Township, PA, was rocked by a seemingly random triple-homicide during the summer of 2007. There were no witnesses, very few leads and no solid suspects. As days turned into weeks and the crime remained unsolved, the small-town neighborhood was filled with sadness, questions, and a growing sense of fear. One month after the murders, Tim Kreider's son Alec was committed to a mental health hospital. One of Alec's best friends had been one of the murder victims, and Tim feared that the loss had pushed his long-troubled son over the edge. Tim didn't realize that his world was about to come crashing down around him. Refuse to Drown is the true story of a father's despair and the type of perseverance that can lead to hope and healing.

Refuse to Drown

Tim Kreider's cartoons, previously seen only in the Baltimore City Paper, have attracted a cult following for their razor-sharp intelligence and unprecedented viciousness. His manic, spontaneous line, and his eye for facial expression, gesture, and detail make his cartoons more than one-shot gags. His humor is both erudite and puerile, as personally revealing as a drunken blackout and as politically trenchant as a lone gunman. Kreider's work has been likened to the foul result of inbreeding between Ralph Steadman and B. Kliban. The wide range of subject matter in this collection covers religion and politics to Nietzsche and pie, from sex and violence to the sheer pointlessness of it all.

When Will It End?

The Pain

Cynical, astute, blackly hilarious, and deeply biased, Tim Kreider's cartoons are neither the superficial, obvious jibes that appear in your daily paper's editorial section nor the didactic left-wing rants syndicated in your local alternative weekly; they are the artistic equivalent of hollow-point bullets fired from a high-powered rifle with a laser sight directly into the brain of the Bush administration.

Why Do They Kill Me?

In this new volume of cartoons, Twilight of the Assholes, reality gets ever bleaker and Kreider’s humor becomes increasingly apocalyptic, deranged, and hilarious. He juxtaposes the Biblical Christ with His blonde, flag-draped, machine-gun-toting American incarnation in “Jesus vs. Jeezus,” proposes a third political party that represents Americans’ real values in “The Sex Party,” draws the dead Saddam Hussein as a mischievous invisible imp still causing trouble, and envisions the officials of the Bush administration getting their comeuppance in the grisly fashion of Dick Tracy villains. And he finds two cartoons’ worth of “Reasons to Look Forward to the Next Terrorist Attack.” Also included is his infamous entry into Iran’s Holocaust cartoon contest, “Silver Linings of the Holocaust.”

Tim Kreider

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