Maximum Shelf: HOME IS BURNING

wcag heading

wcag heading

wcag heading

MaxShelf-HomeIsBurningFor the Marshalls, laughter is the best medicine. Especially when combined with alcohol, pain pills, excessive cursing, sexual escapades, actual medicine, and MORE ALCOHOL.

home Today’s Maximum Shelf Awareness features one of our favorite memoirs of the fall season: HOME IS BURNING by Dan Marshall.

A self-described spoiled white kid with money, Marshall moved home at age 25 to help care for his father, diagnosed with ALS, and his mother, who has cancer. While caring for both terminally ill parents, he also has to deal with a houseful of rowdy siblings with problems of their own. Despite the terribly sad premise, the Marshall family saga is surprisingly sweet and funny.

“Many stories have been written about terminal illnesses, degrading deaths, and families in grief; but the loving portraits painted here of outrageous and colorful characters joking in the face of ugliness may be unique. As Bob approaches his final chapter, readers will certainly cry, but they will laugh as well. HOME IS BURNING is a strangely packaged gift: love and pain, death and life, sex jokes, fart jokes and plenty of booze make up an extraordinarily heartwarming love letter from ‘a sad dude with a big heart who really loves his dad.’ In its sad ending there is unlikely joy.”   Shelf Awareness

“Funny, heartbreaking, and unapologetically crude. A poignantly provocative memoir.”   Kirkus Reviews

Click here to read the full Shelf Awareness summary, review and entertaining interview with Dan Marshall, which contains gems like this:

SA: Are you this amazingly self-deprecating in real life?
DM: I start everyday by looking in the mirror and booing. Just kidding. I don’t do that.

HOME IS BURNING will be available from Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio on October 20, 2015.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.