The World's Largest Man: A Memoir

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Product Details
Price
$18.99  $17.66
Publisher
Harper Perennial
Publish Date
Pages
368
Dimensions
5.3 X 8.0 X 0.9 inches | 0.5 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780062351500

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About the Author
Harrison Scott Key is the author of The World's Largest Man, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and Congratulations, Who Are You, Again?. Harrison's TEDx talk about the challenges and rewards of creative ambition ("The Funny Thing About the American Dream") is featured on TED.com, and his humor and nonfiction have appeared in The Best American Travel Writing, Oxford American, Outside, The New York Times, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Bitter Southerner, Town & Country, The Mockingbird, Salon, Reader's Digest, Image, Southern Living, Gulf Coast, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. He has spoken and performed on radio (Snap Judgement, WNYC Studios) and for hundreds of festivals, bookstores, conferences, variety shows, and universities. He lives in Savannah, Georgia.
Reviews

"A loose and rollicking compendium of stories that's billed as a memoir but comports itself more like a killer concept album." -- Garden & Gun

"You don't need to be a hunter or even a man to enjoy this exceptional memoir." -- New York Journal of Books

"Consistently seasoned with laughs, this memoir is adroitly warm and deep when it is called for. An uncommonly entertaining story replete with consistent wit and lethal weaponry." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The World's Largest Man [is] a collection of essays, a memoir that reads like fiction. It truly is a gem." -- The Bitter Southerner

"[Key has] a comic voice that puts him in the choir with other humorists you may have heard of--such as P.J. O'Rourke, Roy Blount Jr., Garrison Keillor, Lewis Grizzard, Dave Barry and others. Maybe even Mark Twain. 'The World's Largest Man' is a triumph of a comic memoir." -- Mississippi Business Journal

"Funny as well as tender." -- New York Times

"Ever the raconteur, Key fills this rollicking memoir with tales of growing up with a larger-than-life father and being raised in the country, where boys would learn to fish and hunt and farm." -- Publishers Weekly

"It reads like fiction that is too crazy to be anything but truth. Fans of memoir, personal essays, and humor writing will devour this in one sitting." -- Library Journal

"Indeed, like many of the great Southern humorists, Key relies on wit to bridge the deep emotional fissures that many people, at least of the thinking persuasion, have to cross when trying to reconcile the historic evils of the South with their own enduring love for it." -- Memphis Commercial Appeal

"Blessedly, Key writes with a parched sense of humor, because his stories might otherwise qualify as tragedy. The line here between gasping and guffawing is piano-wire thin, but mostly you enjoy, swept up how Key ekes some brow-furrowing wisdom from most experiences. He's a masterful writer and observer." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Both laugh-out-loud funny and observant about the ways we become our parents while asserting ourselves, The World's Largest Man is a wise delight." -- BookPage

"The sardonic tone and spicy language may prompt comparisons to David Sedaris, another humorist who has perfected the narrative stance of put-upon outsider vs. risible eccentrics." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"What I have read of Harrison Key's memoir makes me want to read more." -- Roy Blount Jr., Author of Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South

"Harrison Key will make you laugh and cry in his compelling essays. And whatever emotion he evokes, you will admire the style, grace and clarity of his prose." -- Lee Gutkind, Founder and Editor of Creative Nonfiction

"I haven't laughed like this in years. I felt like I stumbled upon an undiscovered treasure when I read Harrison Scott Key's The World's Largest Man. I couldn't wait to tell my friends. Rare hilarity, indeed, in these asinine times." -- Neil White Author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts