Can't You Get Along With Anyone?: A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise (Hardcover)

by Allan C. Weisbecker (Author)
Key Phrases: million little pieces, sweet gulf, underground empire, Costa Rica, Max Dalton, Gerardo Mora (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
As his sanity, health and existence are simultaneously mangled, Weisbecker somehow manages to solve a murder, wrestle the dark side of paradise, and wind up on multiple third world hit lists... Can't You Get Along With Anyone? is a necessity for anyone who believes truth is indeed stranger than fiction... an entrancing, thoughtful and darkly humorous calamity. -- Surfer Magazine

Can't You Get Along With Anyone? is a writer's book about writing. And when I say writer, I mean Writer. I've already compared Weisbecker's writing with Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's, and now I'm going to compare it to Mark Twain's. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn is a Writer. Mark Twain is a Writer. And Allan Weisbecker is a Writer. (James Maclaren) -- Ink 19

If you're looking for Hunter S. T's and Kerouac's lost cousin, look no further. In terms of brass balls and lunatic schemes filled with desperadoes, delusions, and dirt roads, Weisbecker goes toe-to-toe with Neal Cassidy/Dean Moriarity any day. (Jay Sweet) -- Paste Magazine

With In Search of Captain Zero and now Can't You Get Along With Anyone? I believe Allan Weisbecker is the greatest memoirist of our time.(Mary Sands) -- Jack Magazine

As his sanity, health and existence are simultaneously mangled, Weisbecker somehow manages to solve a murder, wrestle the dark side of paradise, and wind up on multiple third world hit lists...Can't You Get Along With Anyone? is a necessity for anyone who believes truth is indeed stranger than fiction...and entrancing, thoughtful and darkly humorous calamity. --Surfer Magazine

If you're looking for Hunter S. T's and Kerouac's lost cousin, look no further. In terms of brass balls and lunatic schemes filled with desperadoes, delusions, and dirt roads, Weisbecker goes toe-to-toe with Neal Cassidy/Dean Moriarity any day. --Jay Sweet, Paste Magazine

With In Search of Captain Zero and now Can't You Get Along With Anyone? I believe Allan Weisbecker is the greatest memoirist of our time. --Mary Sands, Jack Magazine

Product Description
At the finale of his critically acclaimed first memoir, In Search of Captain Zero, Allan Weisbecker has found his paradise at the end of the road in outback Central America (Pavones, Costa Rica), and is working of the screen adaptation of the book, commissioned by Sean Penn and a major Hollywood studio. Can t You Get Along With Anyone? is the story of Weisbecker s paradise, its underbelly, his fall from grace with the powers that be in Hollywood and the publishing business, plus the near loss of his life due to the writing of the book; he exposes a double murderer and, more dangerously, the love of his life as a sociopath. Interwoven through the various catastrophes that test him on every level, are Weisbecker s reflections on the process of writing the book itself and the nature of nonfiction. Weathering his after-writing throes, writer s queasy gut, and hemorrhaging forehead (from staring at the blank page), Weisbecker maintains his sanity and perspective through his wry, sometimes wildly funny take on his own fears and flaws, and through retreat into the purity of the simple act of riding a wave.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 504 pages
• Publisher: Bandito Books; 1st edition (September 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979711703
• ISBN-13: 978-0979711701
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (137 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,200 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars unhetical, August 6, 2008

By	panino (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews

like lots of other people I like ASW. His previous book have been consistently funny and engaging.
so, I was excited when this was out.
But page after page my excitement turned in disgust. This book is just wrong. He's using the book to settle his own scores with arrogance (with his previous publisher, with his expat community in Pavones, with his girlfriend...).
why? How childish of him, trying to circumvent us with the "world global conspiracy" in order to have our empathy.
I just personally feel that the way the book is written it's just unhetical and unfair (can Stecyk reply, can his previous publisher reply?).
I guess I won't wait for his next one... and I doubt there will be a next one anyway.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Did not feel it, December 12, 2007

By	G. Kaufman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Enjoyed the first two books, but this one was a drag and painful to get through. It needed to be shortened up.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Thing, October 1, 2007

By	Cornell Grad - See all my reviews

I got through this book within two days of receiving it and immediately started to read it again. Weisbecker is the Real Thing. His witty prose and caustic style convey the torment and pain of his life so candidly, that the reader can only praise him for reminding us, in this age of sugar-coated media propaganda and Bush administration tautologies what real honesty actually feels like. As a reader, I could feel a palpable sense of catharsis knowing that the book actually made it to print despite the threat of censorship through litigation.

For me one of the most interesting parts was reading about the emotional rollercoaster that was author's life in the summer of 2005. Weisbecker is one of those extremely rare authors whose writing truly influences the lives of his readers. After reading the author's previous book, In Search of Captain Zero, my brother and I embarked, with cult-like determination, on our own mini-version of the Zero Odyssey. Our goal: To go to Pavones, Costa Rica, overland, in the summer of 2005, in search of "Captain Weisbecker." After passing through five countries in Central America we finally made it to "the end of the road." We spent a few days in Pavones and although Weisbecker had been reported to be in town, replete with sightings of his green truck, we never had the pleasure of bumping into him. Although we were unsure that the note we left at Sea Kings Surf Shop, ever made it into his hands, after reading this book I now feel a sense of completion: In any other circumstance my brother and I would never know exactly why it was that he was not eager to take visitors that month, however because he wrote such an honest and detailed personal account, I am, two years later actually able to pick up his book and see, actually feel, what it was he was going through at that time. And knowing that, I know why events in my own life worked out as they did. So in an indirect sense, I was reading about my life in this book as seen from the author's perspective. How many authors are charismatic enough to literally draw their readers into their world?

In short Weisbecker is a very compelling, brutally honest and completely refreshing read: the antidote to CNN.