An Underachiever's Diary [Paperback]

Benjamin Anastas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 1999

In the mid-1960s, william was the firstborn of identical twin boys. it is the last time in his life he will ever be first in anything.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Benjamin Anastas's filigreed novella is grounded in a very slim conceit. Of two brothers born into a trendy Cambridge, Massachusetts, household, one twin is set for success, the other for chronic failure. Although ill-fated William actually beat Clive into the world by seven minutes, it's straight downhill from there. The first chapter is filled with hilarious scenes of equal opportunity gone wrong, our narrator balancing each of Clive's triumphs with his own pratfalls. Even their hair is woefully unequal. At three the younger sports a Beatles mop par excellence, while William is the eternal victim: "My mother, no artist with the scissors, had run into some trouble with a cowlick on my top, and I looked more like a lesbian, or David Bowie in his glitter years."

Unfortunately, as the boys hit puberty and William exiles himself to boarding school ("the Boys' Prison"), the book goes awry. The underachiever's later misadventures are no less acutely rendered, but with his foil at more of a distance, William's sorrows and sarcasms lose some of their strength. Despite its brevity, An Underachiever's Diary should not be read in one sitting but savored slowly (or even dipped into in very small doses) for its balanced prose and arch self-deprecation. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

"Please do not confuse this diary with a memoir written for a therapeutic purpose," urges William, the narrator of this earnest, tender, achingly autobiographical first novel that reads like a manifesto for Generation Xers. An identical twin born in the mid-1960s to politically liberal parents in Cambridge, Mass., he sets out to define himself through a chronicle of his young life and by everything that his shining-example, more conventional brother is not: an "utter failure," a "screw-up"; in short, an underachiever. Where his brother, Clive, excels (in academics, in making bright friends and winning the heart of the celestial girl next-door and in getting into Harvard), William becomes infatuated with a kind of grotesque failure?attracting an alcoholic girlfriend, choosing a third-rate college, joining a San Francisco cult. He is the loser son every mother fears having, and he's proud of the ignoble distinction. In carefully and formally constructed, exquisitely cadenced prose, Anastas succeeds in capturing an adolescent's naivete, self-absorption and instinct for melodrama?and in filtering it all through a fierce intelligence. Cultural signifiers offering a clue to the influences on the narrator are plentiful: William Faulkner, TV shows like A Family Affair, classical authors and St. Augustine. Though William scoffs at being the representative of his maligned generation ("I hear rumors that my condition is widespread"), there are just the right amounts of candor, wit, puerile humor and perverse irreverence in Anastas's work to succeed at that. (Mar.) FYI: Anastas has won both Story's College Fiction Competition and GQ's Frederick Exley Fiction Prize.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (March 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380732181
• ISBN-13: 978-0380732180
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very entertaining and funny novel., December 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: An Underachiever's Diary (Hardcover)

An Underachiever's Diary was a very good novel. Not since Catcher in the Rye have I had so much fun reading a novel. I never wanted to stop reading it. The book is about a young man named William, who is a complete loser throughout his whole life and trys his best to not be in the shadow of his own younger twin brother Clive, who is a very successful person. The sad thing is that William has had bad luck ever since his birth in the hospital room. It is funny, however, how he never tries to become like his brother even though he idolizes him and just when things start to go right for him, he gets messed up again. He is like a modernized Holden Caulfield. Overall, this is a very good book to read and I highly recommend it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strangely Amusing, April 8, 1998

By 

Joey Miller ([e-mail]) (Oxford, MS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Underachiever's Diary (Hardcover)

The cover of this book is what first drew me in to it; so dull to be so full of brilliance. A very easy read, it is a wonderfully compelling book, which managed to make me laugh, then feel sad for poor William, and then turn around and cheer for him in the end, hoping that he really does become the greatest underachiever in the world. I disagree entirely with Kirkus. The story does not need a plot, but stands alone as a simple monologue, reminiscent, perhaps, of Kerouac's free form. The "moral" or the story is what's truly important. I must say, it is one of the most refreshing books i have read in a long while. I look forward to reading more of Mr. Anastas' work.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Self pity cured by humor, Anastas' fiction uses fun language, June 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: An Underachiever's Diary (Hardcover)

Benjamin Anastas' story is hysterically witty, and finally somebody as insane as this author can spit out a quality story in modern and uniquely 21st century style of language, with enough philosophy to make reading the book worth it. The book cannot possibly take anybody more than two days to read - unless your sense of humor is as idiotic as television sitcoms, or you're too busy seeking out meaningless goals: the exact type of personalities Anastas rips to shreds with his gift of story telling. There is a certain desire to identify with the main character, yet on the same hand it frieghtens you, because he is flawed to a degree you've never opened your own eyes to. Don't read this book if you can act poised through a bad highschool play performance, if you've ever thanked 'God' in an acceptance speech of any sort, or if you're drawing conclusions about me based on this review. It's for a different 'type' of person! You'll see how Anastas paints these different 'types' of people, and you'll think it's cruel, funny, and very true. Note his keen East Coast attitude, and his recollection of many boyhood experiences familiar to anybody who was raised on that side of the continent. Also, note how the protagonist's journey to adulthood leads him to California, on the other side of the country, yet spiritually and mentally he never grows or matures, taking hedonistic pleasure in obscene mediocrity. The book is so much fun, and look for anything else you can get your hands on by this author. (Then send it to me!)