My Heart Is an Idiot: Essays [Hardcover]

Davy Rothbart (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 4, 2012

Davy Rothbart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Constantly. He falls helplessly in love with pretty much every girl he meets—and rarely is the feeling reciprocated. Time after time, he hops in a car and tears across half of America with his heart on his sleeve. He’s continually coming up with outrageous schemes, which he always manages to pull off. Well, almost always. But even when things don’t work out, Rothbart finds meaning and humor in every moment. Whether it’s humiliating a scammer who takes money from aspiring writers or playing harmless (but side-splitting) goofs on his deaf mother, nothing and no one is off-limits.

But as much as Rothbart is a tragically lovable, irresistibly brokenhearted hero, it’s his prose that’s the star of the book. In the tradition of David Sedaris and Sloane Crosley but going places very much his own, his essays show how things that are seemingly so wrong can be so, so right.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, September 2012: Following your heart can get you in a lot of trouble. This is true for no one more than Davy Rothbart, whose hilarious new essay collection is loosely built on the premise that he falls in love much too easily. But Rothbart's desire to impress his crushes is often just a starting place for a much wilder story. One involves rallying a group of strangers for the best Valentine's Day ever; in another, he finds a dead body in a swimming pool. (My favorite piece involves Rothbart's attempt to seek revenge on a scam artist by dumping urine on his head.) But none of these hilarious reflections would work if Rothbart didn't show such a clear sense of self-awareness. As a character, he's likable, shortsighted, and earnest; as a writer, he is a shrewd storyteller with a deep empathy for all the eccentric people he meets. Given his credentials--as a creator of Found Magazine and a contributor to This American Life--it's no surprise that Rothbart is so attuned to the world around him. Now if only his heart were as perceptive. --Kevin Nguyen

Review

“THIS BOOK IS F---ING GREAT! Nobody writes quite like Davy Rothbart, because nobody lives quite like Davy Rothbart—a true and funny ragged-hearted seeker of ecstasy, mystery, and human connection. My Heart Is an Idiot contains some of the most perfect and heartbreaking writing that I have ever read.” —Elizabeth Gilbert

“Welcome to the newly remodeled Heartbreak Hotel, where Davy Rothbart is concierge. He’ll also unpack your underwear, restock your minibar, and do stand-up comedy in the lounge.” —Tom Robbins

“In Davy Rothbart’s essays on heartache, mad love, the low life, and the high life, everybody is fascinating; everybody has something to say. The sentences speed you along down one narrative highway after another, and your tour guide is smart and funny and a real democrat: he has a sweet-tempered openness to experience that wins you over. This book breathes new life back into the personal essay, and these essays are a trip. Take that trip.” —Charles Baxter

“Tender, cool, funny, and utterly engaging, Davy Rothbart writes with a kind of warmth and cockeyed energy that make you love him. This book is marvelous.” —Susan Orlean

“An intriguing hybrid of timeless Midwestern warmth and newfangled jive talk.” —Sarah Vowell

“Davy Rothbart has the humor and purity of heart you want and need in an observer of contemporary American life. Without guile and with a belief in small towns, underdogs, love at first sight, the pull of the road, and the soulfulness of strangers, Rothbart is a kind of new-styled Bill Moyers—genuine, wide-eyed, and hopeful.” —Dave Eggers

“I believe in Davy. He's a force to be reckoned with.” —Ira Glass

 

“Davy’s as real as it gets. This is a badass book.” —Kid Rock

“Davy’s my kind of storyteller—honest, hilarious, deeply feeling, and slightly cracked. This is the fresh voice we’ve been looking for.”—Jim Carroll, author of The Basketball Diaries

 

Praise for The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas

 

“Davy writes with his whole heart. These stories are crushing.” —Arthur Miller

 

“It's always exciting to discover a talented new writer. Davy writes with such energy, wit, and heart.” —Judy Blume

 

“Like Kerouac's best novels, these stories are breezy and energetic dispatches from obscure corners of the country... Rothbart mines his material to heartbreaking effect.” —The Washington Post

 

“It is storytelling at its simplest and finest…a blend of melancholy and bravado.  It’s the pleasure of Rothbart’s writing that each yarn begins with a moment that feels so real and yet so out of the ordinary that you’re hooked from the opening scene.” —The Chicago Tribune

 

“Funny, flashy... a great whirlwind.” —The Los Angeles Times

 

“Provocative, original, and potent—at one moment hilarious, at the next heartbreaking... robust with flavor... we're left yearning for more.” —Elle

 

“Beautiful… Rothbart finds poetry, dignity and oddity in the mundane and fleeting moments of everyday life.” —Philadelphia City-Paper

 

“Witty and heartfelt as well as salty and somber, it's a 162-page romp­—eight pieces of short fiction featuring folks who don't always make the best decisions, but somehow, as Bruce Springsteen once put it, come to the end of every hard-earned day with a reason to believe.” —The Kansas City Star

 

“Stunning and intimate… Rothbart shines a light on America’s underbelly.”   —The Boston Phoenix

 

“Recalls Fitzgerald and Kerouac... Rothbart's characters dare to seek adventure.” —L.A. Weekly

 

“A truly wonderful and daring first collection.” —The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (September 4, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374280843
• ISBN-13: 978-0374280840
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Davy Rothbart is the author of the national bestseller Found, and creator of the magazine of the same name. A contributor to public radio's This American Life, he is also the author of the story collection The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My heart is too, I guess... September 10, 2012

By Audrey M.

Format:Hardcover

Warning: Read this book and you'll be in the mood to fall in love all over again. Despite love's perils, many of which Rothbart delves into through this collection, no feeling could be sweeter.

Each essay in My Heart is an Idiot has a little "ah-hah" moment to it - a moment of connection, exhilaration, or heartbreak that pops out and punches you right in the heart or the face. Rothbart's essays seem a natural progression from his years working with This American Life and telling stories on the road - the essays are breezily written and full of nicely-put detail. If you have ever wanted to stick Davy in your pocket for safekeeping or wanted to hop in his van and travel along with him after a show, reading this book is probably the next best thing.

From the utterly filmic "Human Snowball" to the crushingly sad "Shade," Rothbart succeeds in showing us why his heart is an idiot, yes, but a lovable idiot. Rothbart himself is a rich character, charming but weird, sweet but a little selfish, and addictive like few people are. Readers who have ever been in love and done something a little outside-of-the-box will find plenty to relate to, as will those who have been on the receiving end of such gestures.

The collection is based upon Rothbart's seemingly endless arsenal of impossible-but-true tales. He knows how to tell a story, to be sure, but at times the coincidences in his life seem too great, and the reminder on the copyright page seems to suggest that perhaps some of them are: "Occasionally certain aspects...have been altered, amalgamated, reordered, refashioned, omitted, or even fictionalized... to preserve narrative flow." But maybe that is the price of a collection of creative non-fiction as engaging as this, and it's one that readers will likely be eager to forgive.

Buy it. Read it. It will make you feel things.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of life and mistakes September 9, 2012

By brian lam

Format:Hardcover

This book is an excellent read. Whether you're rooting for him or furious at him, Davy's decisions and adventures always brought out strong feelings in me. These are the chronicles of a guy who says "yes" to chances and opportunity where most others would pass, and the results speak for themselves. The casual honest writing style makes for a very accessible read. I highly recommended this book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My Heart is an Idiot October 22, 2012

By Barbara Brodsky

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved these stories. It's probably not a fair review since I'm in one of them, but the whole book stole my heart. Davy's writing is funny, poignant and honest. It's wonderful to watch him develop as a writer since his earlier book, "Lone Surfer," and see the increasing depth. I especially love his openness to people of all sorts, free of our usual prejudices. He is happy to chat with fellow passengers of all sorts on a bus, or to the person beside him on the street, to climb into cars and welcome passengers into his car, and to see both the beauty and the confusion inside people's hearts without giving judgment. His last story, "Ain't That America" especially reflects this open heart. I look forward to seeing more of his writing. [[...]]