Be Brief and Tell Them Everything

Be Brief and Tell Them Everything by Brad Listi is a novel of autofiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “A darkly funny meditation on creativity and family, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything tracks the life of a middle-aged author who is struggling to write his next novel while trying to come to grips with his son's disabilities, set against a backdrop of ecological catastrophe and escalating human insanity in contemporary Los Angeles. A beautiful, powerful, concise work of autofiction that is reminiscent of My Struggle and Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Be Brief documents the stops and starts of adulthood and marriage, and the joys and challenges of parenting, while defining what it means to be a good man, and a good writer.”

The fictional Brad in this novel is very similar to real-life Brad Listi. They both are married with children and live in Los Angeles and host a podcast about a writer talking to other writers. It's difficult to tell from listening to Brad on his podcast and reading Brad's thoughts in his novel where—or if—the two “Brads” diverge. Certainly, they're the same person, right? That's the conundrum, but what a fun one to read and explore.

Autofiction is a flavor of fictionalized autobiography, heightening the question of what is real and what is embellished. In television, think of Seinfeld. In movies, think Almost Famous. In other recent literature, think of The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney. In most cases, there's a modification of real-life events or the invention of subplots or tangents that help in the search for the self—the examination of the author's “character.” The embellishing in this book procures comedic gold. Be Brief is observationally funny as Brad picks apart the positive and negative aspects of the city of Los Angeles, the lunacy of the endless failures and iterations of writing books, the foibles of parenting by people who have barely figured out their own lives, along with the untimely deaths of his loved ones and the guilt from being raised Catholic.

Brad also revisits the trouble he and his wife had conceiving their second child, only to discover once they did conceive was that their son would be diagnosed with epilepsy and cerebral palsy, a crushing diagnosis for the author. But from that comes a realization of the order of things once they've occurred, things more valuable than he once thought, something like destiny, a funny realization when juxtaposed with Brad's antagonistic views towards organized religion.

A section about procuring psilocybin mushrooms and the retelling of his psychedelic vision threatens to derail this thought-provoking, funny, and tender book. Brad graciously concludes the story of his life so far by recounting the many times he's found himself praying next to his children's beds, not necessarily praying to God, but to cosmic forces unknown, hoping for some grace and a reprieve from the bullshit that life often throws his way.

I really enjoyed this book of stories and I highly recommend it. I would give this book four and a half stars.