Lethem is a good writer, but his pop-cultural obsessions aren’t mine, and they don’t particularly interest me. It was interesting to be reminded that other people’s parents aren’t necessarily like mine. For good and bad.

Lethem’s first non-fic collection is interesting—highly introspective, at once academic and uber-geeky, and pretty neurotic. Most of the essays deal with the relationship between Lethem’s family, popular culture, and the formation of his identity during his adolescence through his twenties. At times the self-indulgent nature of memoir and pseudo-memoir writing is annoying, but Lethem is a thoughtful and funny writer, and handles the genre better than most.