I've been reading some lovely new books and writing reviews that go in other places. Those reviews will be at this web site when the books go on sale. So, meanwhile, why not revisit a review from long ago, I thought. Blogspot has a Drafts file where we can stash posts that have been pulled down due to things like link rot, clean out the links, update facts, etc., and break them out afresh. But what was this review doing in it? This was a new book review. Did I pull it down? I didn't think so. I reread it, and I suspect it was censored because of its warning about the drugs that are killing people today.
Censorship has no place in the United States. We need the facts. I'm happy to sell memoirs by people for whom antidepressant drugs work well--but not without a warning that they don't work well for everybody.
Title: Little Man Big Mouth
Author: Dave Schlenker
Date: 2022
Publisher: Black Rose
ISBN: 978-1-68513-013-8
Length: 185 pages
Quote: "Most of the stories in these pages are the stories of every family
– bumbling dads, smart children, dead goldfish, pet loss, mini-van excavations, frazzled parents, epic fails, cheap wine, alligator
hunting, freaky chickens and cookies with John Travolta."
Well, Schlenker admits in the next paragraph, the alligator hunting is specific to Florida, and the chicken and John Travolta were specific to Ocala, where these short essays first appeared as 600-word columns in the Star-Banner. The "30 Years" subtitle refers to the time frame in which the columns were written. They were selected for their enduring and general appeal, and span from the difficulties the Schlenkers had producing their older child to the younger child's professional-quality photography.
As a memoir they're just slightly edgy because Schlenker's life has not been limited to bland, normal, relatable experiences like losing goldfish and bragging about the children. He survived three brain surgeries, with medication to relieve the lingering headaches and the depressing side effects of the said medication.
Antidepressants do seem to serve most of the memoirists who write about them well. This web site does not want to take away the benefit some people get from these drugs but it does need to mention that antidepressants, not any specific weapon, are the common factor in the homicide-suicides that have become increasingly common since Prozac went on the market.
But Schlenker was one of the lucky people: Although he had a painful, potentially fatal, non-cancerous brain cyst as a young man in love, not only could the cyst be cured but also he was able to enjoy being a husband and father. Several of his essays express his gratitude for this. He credits Florida's best known humor columnist, Dave Barry, with having helped him propose (that story's near the beginning of the book) and Ocala's best known retiree with being a pretty good neighbor, at least to him (that's near the end).
There is probably a law that no other male American is allowed to be as impossible to read in public as Dave Barry. Florida also boasts Ridley Pearson, Carl Hiaasen, and at least sometimes Joel Achenbach and Gene Weingarten. As a Florida humor columnist Schlenker was in very distinguished company. His work may suffer slightly from comparison. Some of these essays I could have read while in the company of humor-impaired people. Others made me glad I hadn't tried.
If you want a gentle, heartwarming chortle about the joys of being a decent responsible gentleman today, Little Man Big Mouth is for you. You will want to know how to avoid being beaten up by a crayon and how Schlenker got to be friends with a rock star.
In conclusion, allow this web site to leave you with a sample of Schlenker's friend Ken Block's music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nZ3GCESf7Q .
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