You Are a Complete Disappointment: A Triumphant Memoir of Failed Expectations

by Mike Edison

Overview

“You are a complete disappointment.” On his deathbed, Mike Edison’s father gasped those words to his son—and that was just the beginning of his devastating salvo. For anyone who has ever suffered from parental bullying, this often-hilarious yet intensely heartbreaking memoir from the former High Times publisher will provide both solace and laughter. It begins with a child’s hunger for love and acceptance and continues through years of withering criticism, perverse expectations, and unfounded competition from a narcissistic father who couldn’t tolerate his son’s happiness and libertine spirit. In the end, the author unravels a relationship that could never be fixed—but perhaps didn’t need to be. In the spirit of Augusten Burroughs by way of Jeannette Walls, Edison’s memoir is a candid, devastating, and deeply funny read.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781454919667
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	05/03/2016
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Mike Edison is the former editor and publisher of High Times magazine. His books include the celebrated memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and the sprawling social history of sex on the newsstand, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! (Soft Skull Press). More recently he collaborated with Joe Bastianich on his New York Times bestselling memoir, Restaurant Man (Viking), of which writer Bret Easton Ellis has said, “The directness and energy have a cinematic rush . . . not a single boring sentence.” Edison has worked as a foreign correspondent for Hustler and was a high-paid gun-for-hire of the legendary Penthouse letters. He has contributed to numerous magazines and websites, including Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, the New York Observer, Spin, Interview, and New York Press, for which he covered classical music and professional wrestling. In addition, he is an internationally known musician and ferociously dedicated storyteller who can be heard every Sunday on his show Arts & Seizures on the Heritage Radio Network. Edison lives and works in Brooklyn.

Editorial Reviews

"Edison writes like Hunter S. Thompson, if Hunter S. Thompson was not a self-medicating misanthrope but instead a big-hearted teddy bear with a taste for professional wrestling and narratives of joy and redemption—which is what Edison's marvelous new memoir is: a must-read for anyone who craves instruction for how to get out from under a soul-murdering childhood." —Rick Perlstein, author of The New York Times bestseller The Invisible Bridge: the Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

“Telling Mike Edison he was a complete disappointment was just the first salvo of his father’s deathbed diatribe. In the same way this list of complaints is both amusing and profoundly upsetting, Edison’s memoir about his troubled relationship with his straitlaced dad is a work of humor and pathos. A musician and former editor and publisher of High Times magazine, Edison never fit the constraining mold that his parents considered the only path to success. After his father’s parting words put the capstone on a relationship that had been contentious for decades, Edison looks to discover where exactly he and his father got so off-track. Uncovering the truth takes Edison beyond even his childhood to the formation of his parents’ belief systems as part of a generation that valued conformity above almost all else. Edison is a fine storyteller, quick and witty, who gives the heavy stuff appropriate weight without letting it pull down the lighter moments, like his father’s memorable outburst over a meatball pizza. Edison’s soul-searching creates a moving tribute to being oneself.” —Booklist
 

From the Publisher