I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, andFriend to Man and Dog [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Diana Joseph (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2009

Meet the men in Diana Joseph’s life: “The boy,” Diana’s fourteen-year-old son, who supports the NRA and dreams of living in a house with wall-to-wall carpeting; Diana’s father, who’s called her on the telephone twice, ever, and who sat her down when she was twelve to caution her against becoming a slut (she didn’t listen); Diana’s brothers, or, as her father calls them, “the two assholes”; Diana’s ex-husband, a lumberjack with three ex-wives, yet he’s still the first one she calls when she’s in a jam; and Diana’s common-law husband, Al, an English professor who’s been mistakenly called mentally challenged. Ostensibly organized around the various men in Diana’s life, this is really a memoir about what it’s like to be a modern, smart woman making her way in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A rite of passage for many teens is the sex talk. For debut memoirist Joseph, it was the “slut” talk administered by her hard-edged father. “See, what happens is sometimes a girl will go with this one, and then she’ll go with that one, and then she thinks, what the hell, that one there doesn’t look so bad, why not go with that one, too,” he’d opine as he pulled on an unfiltered Lucky. In the years that followed, Joseph’s life was peppered with prickly relationships with the opposite sex, from boyfriends so icky they became woeful stories recounted over strawberry margaritas to an ex-husband who broke her heart (but still fixes her brakes). She buys her son a doll to put him in touch with his feminine side but later decides she’d rather groom him to be the next Bruce Springsteen. Joseph’s mordant sense of humor helps her make hay from harrowing life experiences. But there are poignant moments here, too, where emotional pain is played for more than just laughs. --Allison Block

Review

“Ms. Joseph’s sense of the apt detail, of the rapid-fire of human commerce, of the way the important gets hidden in the flippant, the hilarity of it all, the sadness, too, the sympathy she emits and provokes for the complexity of just living— all that makes this book irresistible to me.”
—Richard Ford

“Somehow hard-boiled and warmhearted all at once, Joseph’s stories have an unflinching honesty and a wry appreciation for the absurdities of masculinity and motherhood.”
—Sarah Vowell, author of Assassination Vacation

“I'm Sorry You Feel That Way might sound like a sideways swipe at a memoir, but nothing could be further from the truth — it manages to be nostalgic, sad, and pee-in-your-pants funny.” A–
— Entertainment Weekly

“Like the best storytellers –fictional or otherwise – Diana Joseph treats her people with compassion. She manages to be very funny. But she refuses to reduce her family to a comedy routine. Her stories are often sad, but she never lionizes suffering. Instead, she sifts through the ruins of her romantic and emotional entanglements, with an eye on the absurdities we endure in the name of love…I'm Sorry You Feel That Way is sure to offend the faint of heart, but it's hard to recall another collection of essays, or a memoir, with more natural charm.”
— The Los Angeles Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (March 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399155287
• ASIN: B002IKLMOS
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,130,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diana Joseph was born and raised in western Pennsylvania, the Rust Belt, land of Steeler fans and Terrible Towels. When she was a kid, she even had a tee-shirt with Mean Joe Green on it. His face is huge and he's holding out his fist and he's wearing his four Super Bowl rings. The tee-shirt reads, "One for the Thumb in '81." She knows people who still rave about the Immaculate Reception

She attended Westminster College, where she majored in English, and her father kept asking, "What are you going to do with that?"

Her son was born in April of 1992; she graduated from college in May. She held that kid all the time, never letting his feet touch the floor. People said if she didn't put him down, he'd never learn to walk. She also enjoyed dressing him in little outfits: a black velvet tuxedo, a yellow tuxedo, M.C. Hammer-style parachute pants. Such a dandified wardrobe disturbed Diana's brothers, who, every chance they got, removed the offensive garments.

Between 1994 and 1996, Diana was a student in the MFA program in creative writing at Syracuse University. Upon receiving her degree, her father wanted to know, "What are you going to do with that?"

Diana moved to Colorado, where she taught English at Mesa State College. She failed to become a Broncos fan. Her first book, a collection of short stories titled HAPPY OR OTHERWISE, was published in 2003 by Carnegie Mellon University Press.

In 2005, Diana moved to the midwest. She teaches at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Her second book, a memoir titled I'M SORRY YOU FEEL THAT WAY: THE ASTONISHING BUT TRUE STORY OF A DAUGHTER, SISTER, SLUT, WIFE, MOTHER AND FRIEND TO MAN AND DOG was published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam. She hopes you'll read it. You can check out her website at

www (dot) dianajoseph (dot) net

and you can contact her at

imsorryyoufeelthatway (at) live (dot) com

Diana is happy to talk to book clubs; drop her an email and if she can't be there in person, she'll set up a phone chat. Diana is always happy to hear from readers, even the ones who think she stinks, she's terrible, a whiner, a horrible mother, an awful person, but she's especially happy to hear from any reader who just wants to say, "I read your book, and me, too. I know exactly what you mean."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm So Glad She Felt That Way, or Turning Memoir On Its Head, March 19, 2009

By 

Rachel Kramer Bussel "Cupcakes Take the Cake ... (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut,Wife, Mother, andFriend to Man and Dog (Hardcover)

Diana Joseph's I'm Sorry You Feel That Way is my new Favorite Book. By that, I mean Favorite Ever, the kind I talk about incessantly, whip out and read aloud, buy for my friends and family and generally insist everyone I know stop everything they're doing and read now (the last one was Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle).

Lest you think that's hyperbolic, let me tell you when this book is so amazing. Firstly, I read a lot of memoirs, and even the most compelling ones can take on a certain sameness: I did this, I went through tragedy, I did this. Not to knock the genre, because I gravitate towards it, but what Joseph's done here is to turn the memoir on its head. On the surface, these are character studies of the men in her life, and as character studies, they should themselves be studied by fiction writers for their fine detail, their knack of getting inside her subjects' heads, whether it's her ex-husband, son, Satanist neighbor, or dog.

But then Joseph manages to bring the topic at hand back to herself in ways that are subtle yet extremely powerful. She talks about what these men (and animals) mean to her, how she is like them and different from them, what she gets out of her relationships with them, the complexity of the love she feels for them. In the process, she touches on sex, religion, family, motherhood, daughterhood, smoking, work, and pet ownership.

My favorite chapter by far is "The Girl Who Only Sometimes Said No," about looking at her son's yearbook with him, and trying to grapple with her own past as a slut (or perhaps a "slut") while conveying to him why judging women on their sexuality is wrong. Her writing is blunt, direct, and powerful. The scant few sentences about her being date raped are ones that linger in their scarcity.

I skipped around these essays, which Joseph makes it easy to do. Together, they cohere and make a narrative of a woman who got married and became a mom in her early twenties, was miserable and lonely and often lost-feeling, drank a lot, but got her bearings (her essay about her former colleague and how his alcoholism separated them is moving in its calm tragicness) and became a professor. I left the essay "Humping the Dinosaur" for last; I started it, but since I'm not a dog person and I thought it was about her dog (which it is), I kept putting it off. When I finally got to it, it contained a paragraph about crying, about losing it, about worrying incessantly, that was as honest and true and easily relateable as the rest of the book. That's the magic here; a chapter on her dog's humping problem is also about how she copes with stress.

By taking the winding road to tell her stories, Joseph makes us pause and truly look at the people she trains her pen on. Her compassion for them, her insight into what makes them tick, and why she's drawn to them, is at the heart of this book. Please do yourself a favor and check out I'm Sorry You Feel That Way. I have a feeling it just may become your new favorite book too.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, May 18, 2009

By 

Diane "bookchickdi" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut,Wife, Mother, andFriend to Man and Dog (Hardcover)

is the catchy title of Diana Joseph's book of essays about her life. Subtitled The Astonishing But True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog, Joseph recounts incidents from her life that made her the woman she is.

The book is an honest, funny and touching look at Diana's life. Her father, a man who preferred to be sans shirt most of the time, gave his twelve-year-old daughter some advice on boys: "Don't be a pig". Translation: Don't be a slut. She didn't take his advice, and frequently her choices in men were questionable.

She calls her now-teenage son 'the boy', and her description of raising a son mostly on her own reminded me of Anne LaMott's writing on the same topic. Single moms trying everyday to do their best, but struggling with not having enough money, exhaustion, depression and loneliness. She is not a matryr, just a human being.

Joseph is remarkably honest in her assessment of herself and others, and that is the strength of her book. She has the ability to see the good and bad that exists in all of us, and expresses that in her unique way.

The last essay of the book, 'Ten Million, At Least', is the most moving. Joseph lives with literature professor Al, a good guy who loves her and her boy. They love each other, but they also have their differences, which makes it difficult at times to cohabitate. If you don't tear up at the last two pages, you simply aren't human.

Diana Joseph has spent much of her life around men- her dad, her brothers, lovers, and her son- and that has colored the way she sees the world. Her book is an honest look at how a modern woman deals with bad habits, depression, sex, love, crummy jobs, poverty, pets, loneliness, rock and roll and family. It's humorous and moving, just like life. If you are a fan of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, add Diana Joseph to your reading list.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Won't Be Sorry, March 5, 2009

By 

B. Johnson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut,Wife, Mother, andFriend to Man and Dog (Hardcover)

Let's get down to brass tax...Diana Joseph's I'm Sorry You Feel That Way is a damn fine book.

Excuse my lack of eloquence in my praise, I'm no Richard Ford (have you read that blurb? Goodness!), but this book has the grit, charm, humor and heart you want from any book. And it's those qualities, particularly the blue-collar aspects, that set this apart from other essay collections.

The essay collections I've read always seem outside the realm of my world. As good a writer as David Sedaris is, it's impossible for me to identify with him over his problems of living in a cottage in France, or traveling to Japan to quit smoking. And because he's the vanguard of essayists, it gives the whole essay genre an air of privilege, or a kind of cultural superiority. I'm Sorry You Feel That Way is rooted in a much more real, Roseanne Barr, middle-class America world. And I'm thankful for it. This grit contributes to that felt trueness that lurks in all of these essays, like the best Bruce Springsteen songs, that I'm sure Joseph knows the lyrics to.

These essays on the men of Diana Joseph, from her trench-footed son, to the lumberjack ex-husband, to her obscene brother, to God on high, all are so honest and heartfelt, you just want to give Diana a hug afterwards and say, "I know exactly what you mean." And I don't have brothers, or an ex-husband, or a teenage son, or much of a sexual history. This speaks to the authority, beauty and power of these essays.

Essentially, this crosses boundaries of typical "audience" issues. If you think of a book like Sloane Crosley's I Thought There'd Be Cake. There you have cutesy stories aimed at urbane women with an extra 12 dollars in their pocket, and that book never delivers above that to anything of any actual depth or meaning. I'm Sorry You Feel That Way goes so far beyond surface level concerns of the modern, educated woman that anyone from the woman-hatingest Philip Roth character to the stereotypical Oprah zealot, will feel the emotional resonance at work here.

But, even if you want to quibble with my position that as an essay collection this finally offers something different and substantive to the genre...the book is still hilarious. I don't want to spoil any of those parts for you, but I'll say this...the dog essay. I'd like to see Cesar Milan try that on one of his pooches.

The only knock I can think of against this collection is Joseph's list-like style, and penchant for whole names. It adds an interesting rhythm at times, but other times it feels a bit forced, and I wondered at its function. Kind of like a hood ornament on an expensive car. Yeah, it looks nice, but the car is a Mercedes already, so is it really necessary? But that also speaks to the strength of the essays...I mean, after all, if you're only complaining about the hood ornament, then you got yourself one fine machine.