Oh the Glory of It All

By: Sean Wilsey

Narrated by: Scott Brick

In the most talked-about memoir of the year, a founding editor of McSweeney's gives us his wise, electric, and painfully funny story.

"In the beginning we were happy. And we were always excessive. So in the beginning we were happy to excess." With these opening lines Sean Wilsey takes us on an exhilarating tour of life in the strangest, wealthiest, and most grandiose of families.

Sean's blonde-bombshell mother regularly entertains Black Panthers and movie stars in her marble and glass penthouse, "800 feet in the air above San Francisco". His enigmatic father uses a jet helicopter to drop Sean off at the video arcade and lectures his son on proper hygiene in public restrooms, "You should wash your hands first, before you use the urinal. Not after. Your penis isn't dirty. But your hands are."

When Sean turns nine years old, his father divorces his mother and marries her best friend. Sean's life blows apart. His mother first invites him to commit suicide with her, then has a "vision" of salvation that requires packing her Louis Vuitton luggage and traveling the globe, a retinue of multiracial children in tow. Her goal: peace on earth (and a Nobel Prize). Sean meets Indira Gandhi, Helmut Kohl, Menachem Begin, and the pope, hoping each one might come back to San Francisco and persuade his father to rejoin the family.

With its multiplicity of settings and kaleidoscopic mix of preoccupations - sex, Russia, jet helicopters, seismic upheaval, boarding schools, Middle Earth, skinheads, home improvement, suicide, skateboarding, Sovietology, public transportation, massage, Christian fundamentalism, dogs, Texas, global thermonuclear war, truth, evil, masturbation, hope, Bethlehem, CT, eventual salvation...Oh the Glory of It All is memoir as bildungsroman as explosion.

©2005 Sean Wilsey (P)2005 Penguin Audio and Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The cliché ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ may well have been coined to describe Sean Wilsey’s wild, wise, and whip-smart memoir." (Elle)

"[An] irreverent and remarkably candid memoir about growing up in wealthy eighties San Francisco...rollicking, ruthless...ultimately generous-hearted." (Vogue)

"A vivid mix of brio, self-awareness and sophistication...writing well is indeed the best revenge." (The New York Times Book Review)

Fascinating from beginning to end.

Oh, the glory of a mother and step mother being mean to a son, and the son turning out to be a wonderful writer. I would like to thank the writer for hours of enjoyment, Scott Brick, for giving it a subdued read, The New Yorker Magazine for intoducing us to Sean Wilsey with an except April, 2005, and kudos again to the author for being such a good wordsmith and story teller. Last, but not least, if I'm ever at an event, and if Dede Wilsey is there, I would like someone to point her out to me.

Oh, the Glory of It All

I had a tough time sticking with the book because it was so graphic. However, I enjoyed reading about people I had heard of and how the other half lives. In the end it all came together and I have to give Sean Wiltsey credit for standing tall.

Scathing and searching

Absorbing and insightful, self-involved in the best way. Wilsey is an expansive, genuine writer who rarely strikes a false note. I thought Wilsey's story was fascinating, and even more interesting were Wilsey's careful, wry, and sometimes angry attempts to make sense of his childhood. Wilsey is matter-of-fact, never letting himself off the hook or descending into self-pity. In other audiobooks, I've found the narrator, Scott Brick, difficult to deal with, but not this time; I thought Brick's narration here was understated and unintrusive.

Long time to get there

Nicely narrated presentation which dragged and skulked like the core of the book itself. A sad display of me first parenting, a screwed up hero fighting his way through life, finally catching up. In spite of everyone.

Oh the Pity of it ALL

Too bad, but this compelling story is ruined by an unfocused author. I would love to read the real book buried somewhere inside the repetitious claptrap. Still, Scott Brick makes the most of this unfortunate situation.

Zzzzzzzzzz

The narrator.....has too many......long.....drawn-out.......pauses. I, too, like the previous reviewer, fell asleep every time I tried to listen to this.

STOP! DON'T DO IT!

Oh the torture of it all.... I thought I was going to die of boredom listening to this book, it droned, and droned, and droned, and droned (a sampling of the writing style - repeat the same thing over and over and call it writing) This book could really be condensed down to about 5 hours and MAYBE be a good listen - but in this unabridged version it's just "so much non-essential drivel". It doesn't even end well so do not waste a selection on this. I love long books that are involved - when interesting. Unfortunately I chose this book for it's length and it's reader - who by the way - true to form IS the best thing about this book. Scott Brick has always been a favorite but I really think this book even bored him.
Just a warning - if you liked the book then I'm sorry, but I hope whomever is thinking of this book takes the time to listen in depth to the sample..... just to see... good luck.

I give up

I have listened to the first (of three) parts of this book - and in a personal, audible.com-first, I am tossing in my towel. Too long, too much detail, too much working-out-of-personal-issues. Darn, I say!

Scott Brick does his usual excellent job, but even using the "faster" setting on my I-pod, I still can't get through this.

Boring to a fault

Besides the content of the book I just couldn't get past the annoying voice of the reader. He sounds flat at all times and actually put me to sleep while listening. At times I couldn't tell which character was speaking the dialogue since it's all in the same monotone.

Don't waste your time with this selection. I gritted it out because it was all I had to listen to during a 1300+ mile car ride.