Name: I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son
ISBN: 9780385352307

Kent Russell

This collection of essays depicts misfits, loners and troubled young men who seek a more intense lifestyle including a man who immunizes himself against venomous snake bites, a mogul who lives on a crocodile-infested island off Australia and Amish baseball players.

I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son

Leafling

Recently, Karen Russell's brother Kent Russell came out with a book that was supposedly about hyper-masculinity in America. In the brilliantly named I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son, Russell writes about his time spent with juggalos, a man who immunizes himself to snake venom, Amish baseball players, a survivalist, and more. Sounds exactly like my kind of book, right? He also intersperses this with writing about his relationship with his father. And the truth about this book is that he really just wanted to write about his dad. 

If he wanted to write about his dad and his family, he should have. Russell is an interesting character and a really good writer. He's often really funny, and I loved his descriptions of Florida. It's just that the essays he wrote weren’t very connected. They were just kind of inserted next to each other: something about his dad next to something about some manly guy. And the last essay felt especially disjointed. It was clear that he had probably written it for something else. It's when he's writing about his family that he touches on some interesting things.

Read more of my review and my experience reading this book with a dead father here: http://outlandishlit.blogspot.com/201...

I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son

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