Famous Builder

by Paul Lisicky

Paul Lisicky remembers being not much like other boys his age, but rather the awkward thirteen-year-old with "arms thick as drinking straws," who composes tunes in his head that he might later send to Folk Mass Today or to the producers of The Partridge Family . Born into a family whose incremental success bumps them up a notch from their immigrant upbringing and into suburban America, Paul puts his creative, undaunted energy into drawing intricate housing development plans and writing liturgical music. In the lively, loving essays contained in Famous Builder , Lisicky explores the constant impulse to rebuild the self. With gracious, thoughtful candor and pitch-perfect humor, he explores the very personal realms of childhood dreams and ambitions, adolescent sexual awakenings, and adult realities.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

PAUL LISICKY is the author of The Narrow Door, Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, Fence, The Iowa Review, The Offing, Ploughshares, Tin House, and many other anthologies and magazines. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a fellow. He has taught in the writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Rutgers University-Newark, and Sarah Lawrence College. He teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden. .

Reviews

[Myfanwy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I press a book into your hand and beg you to read it, you will know that I am doing so because I love the book and I want to share that love with you. When you examine the beloved book, you will note how many pages I've dog eared. The more dog ears, the deeper my love.

Paul Lisicky's gorgeous, tender book of essays, Famous Builder, has a dog ear about every other page. I loved it that much.

If you start off your book, very first thing, having to spell your name in a classroom--you've got me. Right there. Welcome to every first day of my life.

But then if you carry on with wonderful, evocative, empathetic renderings of your family and childhood neighbors and relatives (Mrs. Fox! I picture her as Anne Bancroft playing Mrs. Robinson) and your own place within this world and your own childhood longings (to become a famous builder of all the wondrous and geeky things), you've got me even further.

Lisicky pages through his life and opens old wounds and examines them, but never once paints himself or his family the victim. His parents are human beings and he is a son who tries hard and sometimes fails and sometimes lets go. He is a son who yearns, just as they want him to yearn.

While this is partly a book of coming of age, mostly this is a book of home, and what Lisicky (and his brothers) knows is that home is moving away from you just as you know it is there--home could be a department store on its way out or waterfront homes built on dredge and fill or a hotel room.

Home is in the moment:

"I turn back toward the room. If it were mine to do such a thing, I'd secure this moment with the heaviest anchor: Arden taking up all the space he needs; Beau resting a thick paw on Mark's forearm; Mark touching my leg as I walk by, just to let me know he's thinking of me."

A beautiful, touching book. Read it.

[Grover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished this book, randomly pulled out of the literary essay section of the public library, and it was excelent. It's a collection of memoir-ish essays about a guy who grew up in the sixties in suburban Cherry Hill, NJ. What I loved about this book is

1. his nerdy fascination with drawing maps and totally obsessive city-making out of dirt mounds in the backyard
2.airing of personal and family business in a way that is simultaneously touching and and funny and critical.

but mostlly

3. his thorough, not-guilt-enduced analysis of suburban middle-to-upper-middle classness, witnessing the privlege of it, the desperation in it, the fake-faced ness of it, and the sadness in desparately trying to be something you're not. He's so tender yet aware. Can't find the quote, but it's about looking at the cookie-cutter houses that are in rapid decay set against the chemical-plant skyline of jersey, with the twin towers in the distance and saying that instead of focusing just on the nice house or just on the chemical factory he's tries to take it inside entirely, synthesize it all.

That's how I feel about the midwest a lot of times. He's written from a placed perspective from a demographic that is often so not placed. He owns it with beauty, makes me want to keep reading.

it doesn't hurt my attention span that he's a homo, either.

I haven't fully finished a book in about four months, and this is the first.

[Janine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Lisicky’s The Narrow Door is one of my all-time favorite books. Famous Builder, an earlier memoir-in-essays, showcases the loving care with which Lisicky infuses his writing. The way he writes memories, especially, is vivid and sensory and nuanced. Ultimately, though, this book was missing something, and I wish the essays had all tied together a little bit more. But it was a pleasure, as always, to spend time with Paul Lisicky. I’m very much looking forward to reading his forthcoming book Later: My Life at the Edge of the World.

[Bobby Jett · Rating 5 out of 5]

They say one can never truly go home again, but with this delightful book, one can surely settle in for a long visit. This book is pure pleasure.

[Peg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Description: non-fiction, autobiog, Lisicky teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence, lives in NYC and Provincetown.
"Paul L.. remembers being not much like other boys his age, but rather an awkward 13-yr old who composes tunes that he later sells to Folk Mass Today. Born into a family whose provisional success bumps them up from his father'simmigrant upbringing and into suburban America Paul struggles tofind himself as do his two younger siblings."

[Janet Zinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a smart, funny and touching account of growing up and building a life. I read this after thoroughly relishing The Narrow Door, wanting more of Lisicky's voice. Though earlier, it is still written in short scenes bringing together a masterful mosaic.

[Noreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical, humorous and a beautifully written memoir.