Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies

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Overview

What fresh hell is this?

I stopped, dumbfounded. My grandmother was at my bedroom door. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, surprised but not angry. I looked down at my dress. “Playing school.” My grandmother began stroking her chin. Clearly, there were several ways she could take this conversation. “Matthew, what are you wearing?” I could see that she didn’t really want to ask this question but felt she had to. “A dress,” I said. . . . “And where did you get this dress?” she asked. . . . “I found it?” My grandmother sighed. “So you’ve been wandering around the women’s department at JC Penney? Do you expect me to believe you couldn’t find a better dress than that?”

The only Jewish family in a luxury Fifth Avenue building of WASPs, the senior Rothschilds took over the responsibility of raising their grandson, Matt, after his mother left him for Italy and a fourth husband. But rearing Matt was no small task—even for his sharp-tongued grandmother, a cross between Lauren Bacall and Bea Arthur, and a lady who Matt grew to love deeply.

Matt secretly wore his grandmother’s dresses, shoplifted Barbies from FAO Schwarz, invented an imaginary midget butler who he addressed at dinner parties, and got kicked out of nearly every elite school in Manhattan—once for his impersonation of Judy Garland at a recital. He was eventually sent to a boarding school (his grandmother had to ransom off a van Gogh to get him in). But as funny as his hijinks are now, at the time they masked a Jewfroed, chubby, lovable kid, sexually confused and abandoned by his mother, trying to fit in among the precious genteel world he was forced to live in.

Matt Rothschild—the man David Sedaris could have been if he’d grown up in an esteemed family on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—tells the story of his childhood with humor, honesty, and unlikely compassion for his eccentric relatives, including his mother, in this bitingly entertaining and unexpectedly tender memoir of family dysfunction.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Rothschild, a writer and high school teacher living in Florida, was abandoned by his mother and raised by his grandparents, a retired Jewish couple living in "the most exclusive building in the most exclusive neighborhood" of New York City. The setting is sitcom-perfect, from the headstrong grandmother and exasperated grandfather to the wisecracking servants, and Rothschild's youthful acting out offers much opportunity for humor. At one point, his behavior was so out of hand that one of the few private schools he hadn't been asked to leave would accept him only if his grandparents donated one of their Van Goghs as well. But all is not happy: an early attempt by his mother to reunite the family ends in disaster, and her selfish behavior forces him to care for his Alzheimer's-stricken grandmother while still a teenager. Rothschild has been through a lot, and he's an able storyteller, easily drawing readers' sympathy by layering the emotional drama. If his story seems incomplete, that's probably because it is-the final break with his mother would, from an older author, be the midpoint at which Rothschild turns his life around, but this memoir ends with just the first glimmers of an optimistic future. (Aug.)

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From The Critics

Here's a notable but hardly atypical scene from first-time memoirist Rothschild's poor-little-rich-boy story: overwrought, 13-year-old Matt runs away from home with a $100 bill and a box of rat poison. When the poison fails to do him in, he takes a cab to Times Square to ask the prostitutes whether he's gay. He gets an answer, gets relieved of his remaining cash, and gets sent back home to face his grandparents, who address the situation by buying Matt a puppy. Clearly, Rothschild has quite a story to tell. Abandoned by his jet-setting mother, he's raised by her indelibly portrayed odd-couple parents: Matt's feisty, irrepressibly opinionated grandmother and storytelling, class-conscious grandfather, the only Jewish family in an exclusive building on Manhattan's East Side. Enduring a childhood of privilege and self-doubt, Matt is dismissed from one elite school after another, befriends a neighbor girl who convinces him to steal bagsful of Barbies from F.A.O Schwarz, and struggles with his weight, his sexuality, and especially his breathtakingly wealthy-and stunningly dysfunctional-family. Rothschild's style serves his story well. Reminiscent of David Sedaris, he is by turns whimsical and brutal, self-involved and self-deprecating. A strong debut; recommended for public libraries.
—Janet Ingraham Dwyer

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780307405425
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Publication date: 8/12/2008
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

MATT ROTHSCHILD currently lives on the cusp of gentrification in Orlando, Florida, with his adopted boxer, Baron (the only dog who’s ever loved him). He teaches English and journalism at an urban high school.

1 Why I Don't Believe in Santa Claus 1

2 China Girl 14

3 All in the D's 27

4 The Petty Thieves 46

5 In My Grandmother's Closet 65

6 Jude the Obscure 81

7 Visiting Mother 96

8 Call Me Pathological 121

9 Greta Garbo Lives Next Door 136

10 The Wandering Jew 153

11 Damn Static 164

12 Intrafamily Feud 172

13 It's Nothing Personal 189

14 Howard's End 212

15 Judaism for Dummies 232

16 Driving Miss Sophie 242

17 100 Percent, Grade-A Hebrews 266

18 Can I Call You Daddy? 284

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TeensReadToo

Posted October 28, 2008

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Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

So you think being raised by wealthy Jewish grandparents in a Fifth Avenue apartment, twelve years of prep and boarding schools, regular trips to FAO Schwartz, chauffeured limousines, or visiting Mom at her husband's Italian villa also means a life on easy street?

Then you haven't read Matt Rothschild's family memoir, DUMBFOUNDED.

In his memoir, Matt paints a lush and detailed portrait of life as a complex, awkward outsider in a world that demands conformity and simple definition. Despite growing up in a completely different environment, I felt a constant sense of familiarity and kinship with Matt, whether he was describing the painful silence that greeted his a capella rendition of "Get Happy" for the sixth-grade talent show, spinning tales of his midget butler, Little Saigon, in the hopes of pleasing his fickle grandmother, or confronting an ever-increasing awareness that his sexuality might not fit society's definition of "normal."

Matt's story runs the gamut of human emotion from laugh-out-loud hilarity to chest-aching heartbreak. DUMBFOUNDED is first and foremost a book about people, and it reminds us that once stripped of all our ideological constructs (wealth, race, faith, gender, orientation, nationality, etc.), at our core, we're all pretty much the same.
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Anonymous

Posted September 6, 2008

No white Rolls Royces After Labor Day !!!

Learn these 'aristo' tips & more in this ADDICTIVELY laugh-out-loud debut novel. I started this book & couldn't put it down...As someone who loves men who love Judy Garland & who lives in Vero Beach, Fl surrounded by the 'ladies who lunch' crowd this novel hit home. I read more than your average bear & I can honestly say that this is the best book I have read in years! A perfect read, especially those nights when everything on tv is as non-sensical as Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin preaching abstinence. Now if only Hollywood would option the rights....I can see Matt playing himself with me as his hairdresser. Of course a flatiron & straightening gel would simply HAVE to be included in the budget due to the Jewfro. PS: my dog Beauregard the Beagle loved the author photo featuring Matt with his adopted boxer. The dog's name? Why Baron, of course!
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Anonymous

Posted August 22, 2008

Great Read!

I highly recommend this book to any reader in the mood for an easy read with a great comical and sarcastic undertone. Very well written. The characters come to life throughout each page. I couldn't put the book down.
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Anonymous

Posted October 19, 2008

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Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies

Overview

More About This Book

Overview

Related Subjects

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

From The Critics

Product Details

Meet the Author

Table of Contents

Rating Distribution

Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

No white Rolls Royces After Labor Day !!!

Great Read!