Fraud: Essays
Ratings6
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.2
A frequent contributor to the New York Times magazine, Outside, Salon, and GQ, and a regular on Public Radio International's "This American Life," David Rakoff's debut collection of essays is simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and take-your-breath-away poignant.
David Rakoff is a fish out of water. Whether he finds himself on assignment climbing Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire -- donning a pair of Timberlands for his trek, only to realize with horror that "the shoes I wouldn't be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in." -- sitting quietly impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window...for a month, or musing on the unique predicament of being undetectably Canadian in New York City ("...what's more spicy than being Canadian, I ask you?"), Rakoff has a gift for exposing life's humour and pathos.
*Fraud* takes us places even we didn't know we wanted to go: expeditions as varied as a search for elves in Iceland, a foray into soap opera acting, or contemplating the gin-soaked olive at the bottom of a martini glass.With the sharpest of eyes, David Rakoff explores the odd and ordinary events of life, spotting what is unique, funny and absurd in the world around him. But for all its razor-sharp wit and snarky humor, Fraud is also, ultimately, an object lesson in not taking life, or oneself, too seriously.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Reviews with the most likes.
Super enjoyable. I don't understand why David Rakoff isn't as well-known as David Sedaris. I mean Sedaris is more prolific or whateverrr but seriously, to me, just as funny.
The other gay modern day, literary humorist named David. Rakoff must hate that. There must be days when he just thinks “Fuck it, call me Lourdes from now on” just so he can avoid the inevitable comparisons. So to hurry that along - Fraud is the Discovery show pitched as “Let's send David Sedaris out on location and hear his unique take on the great wide world.”
