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Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation
Adam Resnick, an Emmy Award-winning writer for NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman, has spent his entire life trying to avoid interaction with people. While courageously admitting to being "euphorically antisocial" and "sick in the head," he allows us to plunge even deeper into his troubled psyche in this unabashedly uproarious memoir-in-essays where we observe Resnick’s committed indifference to family, friends, strangers, and the world at large. His mind shaped by such touchstone events as a traumatic Easter egg hunt when he was six (which solidified his hatred of parties) and overwrought by obsessions, including one with a plastic shopping bag (which solidified his hatred for change), he refuses to be burdened by chores like basic social obligation and personal growth, living instead by his own steadfast rule: "I refuse to do anything I don’t want to do."
Cut from a similar (if somewhat stranger) cloth as Albert Brooks or Louis C.K., Resnick is the crazy, miserable bastard you can’t help rooting for, and the brilliant Will Not Attend showcases this seasoned comedy writer at his brazenly hilarious best.
Cut from a similar (if somewhat stranger) cloth as Albert Brooks or Louis C.K., Resnick is the crazy, miserable bastard you can’t help rooting for, and the brilliant Will Not Attend showcases this seasoned comedy writer at his brazenly hilarious best.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2014
194 people are currently reading
3007 people want to read
About the author
Adam Resnick
3 books26 followersAdam Resnick is an American comedy writer from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He is best known for his work writing for Late Night with David Letterman. Additionally, Resnick co-created and wrote for Get A Life with David Mirkin and Chris Elliot
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 304 reviews
August 12, 2016
Consider this a very strong three-and-a-half-star review.
Adam Resnick is what you'd get if you bent Sedaris over, told him to open wide, and rammed a stick up his butt as far as it would go. He's cranky and hates just about everything, but he's observant and often hysterical. Sometimes it feels like he's not really offering anything new to the humorous-memoir-in-essay genre and there isn't a lot of growth happening here. He definitely abides by the Larry David "no hugging, no learning" rule, but his stories still often made me laugh out loud in public in a really inappropriate way.
Adam Resnick is what you'd get if you bent Sedaris over, told him to open wide, and rammed a stick up his butt as far as it would go. He's cranky and hates just about everything, but he's observant and often hysterical. Sometimes it feels like he's not really offering anything new to the humorous-memoir-in-essay genre and there isn't a lot of growth happening here. He definitely abides by the Larry David "no hugging, no learning" rule, but his stories still often made me laugh out loud in public in a really inappropriate way.
June 16, 2025
Funniest book I’ve ever read. Easily.
Read
February 18, 2015beautiful
My purpose is now clear: to get all of you to read this masterpiece. If you don't find it the perfect book, that is all I need to know about you.
My purpose is now clear: to get all of you to read this masterpiece. If you don't find it the perfect book, that is all I need to know about you.
April 19, 2014
The title of this book immediately appealed to me as I am an introvert and somewhat anti-social. I had high hopes after reading that the author, Adam Resnick, is a former writer for Late Night with David Letterman. The book (particularly the first half)definitely provided some good laughs. Towards the end of the book,however,things took a turn for the worse. The author still managed to cajole some laughs out of me, but I found that the undertone of sadness prevailed. I was left feeling downright bummed out by the last story in the book.
Overall, this was a quick, fun read. I definitely appreciated the author's witty writing style. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys comedy. A word of caution: there is very strong language used throughout the book,so I would not recommend it to anyone who finds bad language offensive. The book also included one scene (in the first short story) which was absolutely repulsive and almost caused me to put the book down without finishing it. With those caveats in mind, it's worth a read.
*I am thankful and fortunate to have received a free advance copy of this book via Goodreads first-reads.
Overall, this was a quick, fun read. I definitely appreciated the author's witty writing style. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys comedy. A word of caution: there is very strong language used throughout the book,so I would not recommend it to anyone who finds bad language offensive. The book also included one scene (in the first short story) which was absolutely repulsive and almost caused me to put the book down without finishing it. With those caveats in mind, it's worth a read.
*I am thankful and fortunate to have received a free advance copy of this book via Goodreads first-reads.
April 28, 2014
In the 90s all of my friends jumped on the Seinfeld bandwagon and I never got it. All the characters were not nice people and I remember trying to watch it all the time and wondering why everyone loved this show. I specifically hated George Costanza and never understood his character. I think Will Not Attend is much like Seinfeld in that I don’t know how to assimilate that type of humor well especially in a book where I supply my own timing, it just doesn’t match up exactly.
I enjoyed a few of the stories my favorites mostly being the ones where he was a child and the funny happenstances around those like finding a pornographic picture during an Easter egg or picking up the Janitor from their school to give him a lift. Any of the stories involving his parents I found pretty funny as I can relate to that. But on a whole, Adam Resnick as an adult reminds me too much of George Costanza in his nonsense and the way he interacts with people he doesn’t like or who are just there. That just isn’t the kind of humor that appeals to me unless it can be delivered in an open mic setting.
Humor in a book is hard to capture, timing is everything right. Unless you decide to listen to the audio version and I’ve seen that don’t quite well it is hard to read the right inflection into the meaning at times. The stories were humorous enough and a few really were laugh out loud funny but some just made me cringe especially the one at Disney World.
If you are a fan of Seinfeld, Louis C.K. or Albert Brooks I think this will probably be more up your alley. I can take any of those at times depending on the content but I’m more of an Eddie Izzard fan myself.
I enjoyed a few of the stories my favorites mostly being the ones where he was a child and the funny happenstances around those like finding a pornographic picture during an Easter egg or picking up the Janitor from their school to give him a lift. Any of the stories involving his parents I found pretty funny as I can relate to that. But on a whole, Adam Resnick as an adult reminds me too much of George Costanza in his nonsense and the way he interacts with people he doesn’t like or who are just there. That just isn’t the kind of humor that appeals to me unless it can be delivered in an open mic setting.
Humor in a book is hard to capture, timing is everything right. Unless you decide to listen to the audio version and I’ve seen that don’t quite well it is hard to read the right inflection into the meaning at times. The stories were humorous enough and a few really were laugh out loud funny but some just made me cringe especially the one at Disney World.
If you are a fan of Seinfeld, Louis C.K. or Albert Brooks I think this will probably be more up your alley. I can take any of those at times depending on the content but I’m more of an Eddie Izzard fan myself.
February 27, 2014
ARC for review.
I will temper my not-so-great review by saying that in my experience if you want to truly enjoy books by comedians or comedic writers it's best to get the audio version. There is definitely something hearing versus reading comedy. And I read this one. However, you CAN do it successfully (see Bossypants).
After reading that author Adam Resnick was a staff writer for "Late Night with David Letterman" and "Saturday Night Live" I had very high hopes for this book. I probably should have looked closer to see that his primary credits were as a writer on the movies "Cabin Boy" and "Death to Smoochy", both notorious duds. For me, this book fell into the "dud" category. Resnick is a misanthrope, but if he's a funny one, a la Lewis Black it doesn't come across in this set of essays covering portions of his childhood and his adult life (nothing substantial about his work). It just wasn't funny, and wasn't even clever. Disappointing.
I will temper my not-so-great review by saying that in my experience if you want to truly enjoy books by comedians or comedic writers it's best to get the audio version. There is definitely something hearing versus reading comedy. And I read this one. However, you CAN do it successfully (see Bossypants).
After reading that author Adam Resnick was a staff writer for "Late Night with David Letterman" and "Saturday Night Live" I had very high hopes for this book. I probably should have looked closer to see that his primary credits were as a writer on the movies "Cabin Boy" and "Death to Smoochy", both notorious duds. For me, this book fell into the "dud" category. Resnick is a misanthrope, but if he's a funny one, a la Lewis Black it doesn't come across in this set of essays covering portions of his childhood and his adult life (nothing substantial about his work). It just wasn't funny, and wasn't even clever. Disappointing.
November 26, 2014
I just could not get into this book. I think the author was playing up his jerkitude, and - bravo - it worked for me as a reader. I get that he feels some sort of weird mix of self-superiority and victimhood, and that's all well and good if one's got the chops and the life experience to back it up. I don't feel he conveyed any of that. Some of his phrasings were delightful and made me laugh, but those were few and far between. Mostly, he came off as a giant dick. His insults (pointing out a waitress's rosacea for humor?) and his attempts at dismissive shock-value humor (making light of a potential pedophilia victim?) were callous. I really hope his stories are made up, otherwise this book is just a weird bragging exercise in banal assholery. Not worth my time but might resonate with neurotic guys who want to feel like they're intellectual (the term "intellectual" used very loosely here) bullies.
December 13, 2014
God bless you King Misanthrope, you rule your kingdom well.
February 16, 2015
Started strong and ended a tad asshole. I wanted every story to be like "Booker's a Nice Guy."
December 1, 2015
Quick, entertaining read. Clever way to explore growing up in dysfunction. Proof that humor often masks deep pain, and laughter is cathartic.
September 21, 2014
I'm not exactly sure why I finished reading this book - I guess it's because I loathe starting something and then not finishing it. Maybe it was because I thought, "It's got to get better." I guess some of the stories weren't completely horrible, but for the most part I found nothing appealing about this book. It was supposed to be funny (at least that's what I surmised from the platitudes on the book jacket written by Dave Letterman and Jon Stewart), but I didn't find anything humorous in any of the essays. I did not find one thing likeable about the author. As horrible as his family life appears to have been, he didn't elicit any sympathy - he just portrayed himself as a jerk. Perhaps this book will appeal to someone, but I will not be recommending it.
May 4, 2023
One or two of these stories were really funny. The rest were amazing.
May 4, 2014
Humor is a risky genre. A romance or historical fiction can be a little dull, wander a bit, and perhaps get away with it, but when something isn't funny, it really just isn't. Happily, that is not a problem for Mr. Resnick, who has been writing humor for others, including David Letterman, for a good long while, but not as much as himself. Here he is. Thanks for the free book, Blue Rider Press, but thanks even more to Adam Resnick, because there is seldom anything any of us need more than a good laugh.
Despite the title, Resnick's dark humor does not wander so far down the path of alienation as to lead to misogyny. If you have ever desperately wanted not to attend a party, speak to a neighbor, or pretend to be in a good mood when you really aren't, this is your book. (My daughter actually got hit by a car rather than speak to an oncoming neighbor, but she didn't consciously make the choice...being hit, I mean. And she's fine now.)
Favorite chapters were "An Easter Story", "Booker's a Nice Guy", "Scientology Down Under", and "The Strand Bag". However, nothing here strikes me as filler; the quality of the writing is consistent throughout.
For every teacher's inservice I endured in which all of us were solemnly reminded that sarcasm is never appropriate when speaking to students (yeah, right), this book serves as vindication.
In fact...at the end of the school year, it is a cherished tradition to gift one's teacher. If you have a child or grandchild between grades kindergarten and high school graduation, you'll need a copy of this book for the last day of school. Give the hard cover edition to show you have class, and that you respect education. If your child inscribes it, the teacher may remember him or her up the road apiece. Just a consideration.
Do it now.
Despite the title, Resnick's dark humor does not wander so far down the path of alienation as to lead to misogyny. If you have ever desperately wanted not to attend a party, speak to a neighbor, or pretend to be in a good mood when you really aren't, this is your book. (My daughter actually got hit by a car rather than speak to an oncoming neighbor, but she didn't consciously make the choice...being hit, I mean. And she's fine now.)
Favorite chapters were "An Easter Story", "Booker's a Nice Guy", "Scientology Down Under", and "The Strand Bag". However, nothing here strikes me as filler; the quality of the writing is consistent throughout.
For every teacher's inservice I endured in which all of us were solemnly reminded that sarcasm is never appropriate when speaking to students (yeah, right), this book serves as vindication.
In fact...at the end of the school year, it is a cherished tradition to gift one's teacher. If you have a child or grandchild between grades kindergarten and high school graduation, you'll need a copy of this book for the last day of school. Give the hard cover edition to show you have class, and that you respect education. If your child inscribes it, the teacher may remember him or her up the road apiece. Just a consideration.
Do it now.
February 21, 2015
Maybe I just didn't get his humor or thought process or...well, anything. I'm a big believer in the "right" reader finding the "right" book. This was definitely not the case this time around. Mostly, I didn't believe him. There's a fine line between stories that are outrageously true and those that are too outrageous to be true. I'm not calling Resnick a liar but the stories felt over-embellished to a point where they didn't ring true to real life. Many parts were overwritten.
You hate everything and you're cranky. We get it.
Comedy in written form is often difficult when you're not familiar with the style of the writer. Maybe that's the case here. Perhaps an audio version would be more enjoyable when you can hear the author express his own tones, inflictions, and nuisances.
The idea had such promise. It failed to deliver.
---------
I received a copy from Netgalley for review.
October 29, 2015
I would give it three-and-a-half stars if I could. Somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to give it four, even though it made me laugh a lot. I begrudgingly liked this book for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on. I mean, I don't know exactly why I "begrudgingly" liked it. I guess some of the stories kind of fell flat at the end. The best ones were about his bad-ass dad and his psychopathic brothers. The one about his sister-in-law just made him seem like a complete asshole, though. Still, there is something funny about the way he hates her so much. He KNOWS he's exposing himself as being a complete jerk, but he does it anyway, so there's something admirable about that. I think? (Also, the fact that he's a successful person annoys me. If you're gonna write funny stories about how your fucked-up childhood made you an anxiety-ridden wreck of an adult, at least have the decency to be a miserable slob. [But that's a Catch-22, because if he were a miserable slob, he wouldn't have gotten a book deal and I never would have read his stories.])
March 8, 2016
An entertaining collection of stories about growing up and coping with being a grown-up, Adam Resnick's memoir should suit fans of David Sedaris. A description of his anecdotes might not sell the book (the time he finally told his sister-in-law what he thinks of her, his short-lived career as an insurance salesman, etc) but each is likeably delivered with the kind of craft that prove Resnick is well suited to his comedy-writer career: the insurance industry's loss was comedy's gain.
November 15, 2020
Funny book! Lots of lol moments.
October 17, 2021
Save your time unless you want to read about how rough it is to be a white guy who hates people.
May 29, 2014
I received a free copy of **Will Not Attend** by Adam Resnick from Penguin's First-To-Read program in return for which I agreed to do a review. I couldn't be happier with the choice I made or that I was approved to read this book.
Adam Resnnick is an Emmy-Award winning writer who has written for Saturday Night Live as well as being a co-executive producer for The Larry Sanders Show. He has other writing creds for different shows, but SNL and TLSS are the two with which I am most familiar. This book summarizes the events in Resnick's past that brought him to where he is today. To put this in Resnick's best words of wisdom,"when it comes to the bad stuff, there's nothing too small that's not worth dwelling on forever." OR to put in much simpler terms, if someone were to cross Larry David with Maude, this is who we'd get. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
**Will Not Attend** is a compilation of most situations that Resnick doesn't like which is just about any function, any vacation, anything even remotely having to do with family, music, television, movies, and social functions consisting of more than one other person, and special care needs to be take in deciding who the second person is to be. Resnick has one huge soft spot, and that is his daughter, Sadie. The rest of the world could disappear, and Resnick would not mind in the least.
I laughed through almost every example Resnick gave for why he seems so difficult to get along with, but there was one section that beat out every second, third, fourth, and fifth challenge by a landslide. It just so happens that Resnick was born and raised very close to where I have lived all my life. I couldn't believe my eyes when he started talking about Perry County. I've never actually been to Perry County, but the stories about it are legion. My brother married a woman from Perry County, and my daughter Beans and I were the only two members who would attend a Christmas Eve Party that was thrown, not in honor of Little Baby Jesus. Nope, we were getting together because my brother's intended said they should take a break from each other. Beans and I were the only two people at this party who could not understand how this event was cause for celebration. My brother and his girlfriend spent most of the evening gazing longingly into each other's eyes. Beans and I watched as the others exchanged gifts. Beans and I never argue, but that night on the ride home we did have words over who got the dumbest, tackiest gift. I chose the one given to Grandma. It was an old woman sitting on what at first appeared to be a chair but was really an outhouse toilet. Her panties were down around her ankles. This piece of backwoods artistry did have a functional use as well. It was a bank, and every time a coin was dipped into the toilet.. well think repulsive sound effects and you've got it. The gift for Grandma's other daughter was a huge plastic replica of a cow's head. This gift also had a dual role besides merely backwoods artistry. The cow's head also doubled as a clock. It was hideous. BUT, I should point out that both women were very happy with their gifts and were trying to figure out what the best place was to put these monstrosities once they got them home.
Resnick captures the atmosphere in Perry County perfectly, and I had no doubt that whenever one of the locals popped up in this book, it was given a truthful rendering. There are somethings you really cannot make up. I did take issue with one of Resnick's observations, however. According to Resnick, Treasure Island is the worst excuse for a book ever written. Apparently Resnick never read Moby Dick, because THAT is not a tale of a whale. It isn't even a story. It's a mind numbing manifesto on whales in general. Reading Moby is a far worse punishment than Friday's sidekick because Moby is longer to slog through.
I would recommend this book to people who like a snarky sense of humor. For sure those people will not be disappointed. I plan to read it again.
Adam Resnnick is an Emmy-Award winning writer who has written for Saturday Night Live as well as being a co-executive producer for The Larry Sanders Show. He has other writing creds for different shows, but SNL and TLSS are the two with which I am most familiar. This book summarizes the events in Resnick's past that brought him to where he is today. To put this in Resnick's best words of wisdom,"when it comes to the bad stuff, there's nothing too small that's not worth dwelling on forever." OR to put in much simpler terms, if someone were to cross Larry David with Maude, this is who we'd get. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
**Will Not Attend** is a compilation of most situations that Resnick doesn't like which is just about any function, any vacation, anything even remotely having to do with family, music, television, movies, and social functions consisting of more than one other person, and special care needs to be take in deciding who the second person is to be. Resnick has one huge soft spot, and that is his daughter, Sadie. The rest of the world could disappear, and Resnick would not mind in the least.
I laughed through almost every example Resnick gave for why he seems so difficult to get along with, but there was one section that beat out every second, third, fourth, and fifth challenge by a landslide. It just so happens that Resnick was born and raised very close to where I have lived all my life. I couldn't believe my eyes when he started talking about Perry County. I've never actually been to Perry County, but the stories about it are legion. My brother married a woman from Perry County, and my daughter Beans and I were the only two members who would attend a Christmas Eve Party that was thrown, not in honor of Little Baby Jesus. Nope, we were getting together because my brother's intended said they should take a break from each other. Beans and I were the only two people at this party who could not understand how this event was cause for celebration. My brother and his girlfriend spent most of the evening gazing longingly into each other's eyes. Beans and I watched as the others exchanged gifts. Beans and I never argue, but that night on the ride home we did have words over who got the dumbest, tackiest gift. I chose the one given to Grandma. It was an old woman sitting on what at first appeared to be a chair but was really an outhouse toilet. Her panties were down around her ankles. This piece of backwoods artistry did have a functional use as well. It was a bank, and every time a coin was dipped into the toilet.. well think repulsive sound effects and you've got it. The gift for Grandma's other daughter was a huge plastic replica of a cow's head. This gift also had a dual role besides merely backwoods artistry. The cow's head also doubled as a clock. It was hideous. BUT, I should point out that both women were very happy with their gifts and were trying to figure out what the best place was to put these monstrosities once they got them home.
Resnick captures the atmosphere in Perry County perfectly, and I had no doubt that whenever one of the locals popped up in this book, it was given a truthful rendering. There are somethings you really cannot make up. I did take issue with one of Resnick's observations, however. According to Resnick, Treasure Island is the worst excuse for a book ever written. Apparently Resnick never read Moby Dick, because THAT is not a tale of a whale. It isn't even a story. It's a mind numbing manifesto on whales in general. Reading Moby is a far worse punishment than Friday's sidekick because Moby is longer to slog through.
I would recommend this book to people who like a snarky sense of humor. For sure those people will not be disappointed. I plan to read it again.
January 14, 2016
Will Not Attend is a little like getting invited to dinner with Adam Resnick. He has the seat of honor at the head of the table, and he's got a crazy leer on his face, like he's about to do something unspeakable to the mashed potatoes or the roast chicken.
So you take your seat, with a little apprehension, because you're not so sure you're going to like what he does with those mashed potatoes, that crazy grin. You notice the restraints on the chair you're about to sit in.
"Don't worry," says the maitre'd, "those aren't for you." But that's exactly the sort of thing that makes you worry more.
As you sit and the maitre'd sinks back into the shadows you notice that Mr. Mesnick actually has *two* heads… No, good God, three! It's like you've been let into a freak show tent where they serve dinner. Each one had a different, maniacal grin. One, the younger one, has a frightened rabbit of a grin, likely from living in and amongst a slew of brothers and a steamroller of a trip of a dad. The second has a more innocent smile, though you get the sense that that second head is thinking about, at first, what items from the back of a comic book he was going to send away for and how he'd organize them on his bureau when they arrived, but then started to think of girls and sex and all the rest. The third is an older, more hardened grin as if it's just eaten a mouthful of tacks by accident but, by God, it's going to muscle through and eat them and seem to enjoy it, damnit.
The second head begins speaking first, telling you some story about an Easter egg hunt and a conspiracy between two young kids, a girl and a boy… and you begin to get where it all went off the rails for this head. The first head interrupts the second, and then the third starts, as if just awakened, and soon they're all going, each telling a different story, sometimes overlapping, oftentimes not.
But you're not tied into the chair, and the maitre'd, or someone, keeps bringing another glass of wine, or beer, or sparkling flavored water, so you stick around. You haven't opened your mouth since you arrived, your tweed jacket with the professorial patches on the elbows still on, something the maitre'd forgot to take from you.
Despite his neurotic, somewhat abrasive personality, you like this guy, you like his stories. He tells them with humor, self-deprecating at most times. He's got them down to a science, by now, so that they flow naturally, and even the multitude of heads talking over the course of the evening doesn't seem odd or awkward, just a natural, rambling flow. You get the sense that, were you to sit down next to this guy in a bar, this guy with three heads, that he'd be a miserable bastard, sitting on his own, in silence, looking out at everyone in the bar through hooded eyelids, maybe grumbling obscenities to himself, clutching his plastic bag from The Strand. But this special performance, here at his table, is where he shines, where he feels most comfortable and, warts and all, he's pretty damn entertaining.
I got this book through Penguin's First to Read program (http://www.firsttoread.com). While I enjoyed the book, I didn't quite enjoy the ebook reader I had to use (Bluefire Reader on my iPad -- hence the tweed jacket with the elbow patches, eh? Look at me, all fancy with an iPad. ). Whether it was a limitation of the app or because of a limitation the publisher set on the content I couldn't take notes, notes which would have made this review at least 14% more amazing. The app also crashed on me a few times and forgot my bookmark when I came back to reading. So Bluefire, 1 star, this book, 4 stars.
So you take your seat, with a little apprehension, because you're not so sure you're going to like what he does with those mashed potatoes, that crazy grin. You notice the restraints on the chair you're about to sit in.
"Don't worry," says the maitre'd, "those aren't for you." But that's exactly the sort of thing that makes you worry more.
As you sit and the maitre'd sinks back into the shadows you notice that Mr. Mesnick actually has *two* heads… No, good God, three! It's like you've been let into a freak show tent where they serve dinner. Each one had a different, maniacal grin. One, the younger one, has a frightened rabbit of a grin, likely from living in and amongst a slew of brothers and a steamroller of a trip of a dad. The second has a more innocent smile, though you get the sense that that second head is thinking about, at first, what items from the back of a comic book he was going to send away for and how he'd organize them on his bureau when they arrived, but then started to think of girls and sex and all the rest. The third is an older, more hardened grin as if it's just eaten a mouthful of tacks by accident but, by God, it's going to muscle through and eat them and seem to enjoy it, damnit.
The second head begins speaking first, telling you some story about an Easter egg hunt and a conspiracy between two young kids, a girl and a boy… and you begin to get where it all went off the rails for this head. The first head interrupts the second, and then the third starts, as if just awakened, and soon they're all going, each telling a different story, sometimes overlapping, oftentimes not.
But you're not tied into the chair, and the maitre'd, or someone, keeps bringing another glass of wine, or beer, or sparkling flavored water, so you stick around. You haven't opened your mouth since you arrived, your tweed jacket with the professorial patches on the elbows still on, something the maitre'd forgot to take from you.
Despite his neurotic, somewhat abrasive personality, you like this guy, you like his stories. He tells them with humor, self-deprecating at most times. He's got them down to a science, by now, so that they flow naturally, and even the multitude of heads talking over the course of the evening doesn't seem odd or awkward, just a natural, rambling flow. You get the sense that, were you to sit down next to this guy in a bar, this guy with three heads, that he'd be a miserable bastard, sitting on his own, in silence, looking out at everyone in the bar through hooded eyelids, maybe grumbling obscenities to himself, clutching his plastic bag from The Strand. But this special performance, here at his table, is where he shines, where he feels most comfortable and, warts and all, he's pretty damn entertaining.
I got this book through Penguin's First to Read program (http://www.firsttoread.com). While I enjoyed the book, I didn't quite enjoy the ebook reader I had to use (Bluefire Reader on my iPad -- hence the tweed jacket with the elbow patches, eh? Look at me, all fancy with an iPad. ). Whether it was a limitation of the app or because of a limitation the publisher set on the content I couldn't take notes, notes which would have made this review at least 14% more amazing. The app also crashed on me a few times and forgot my bookmark when I came back to reading. So Bluefire, 1 star, this book, 4 stars.
February 3, 2016
Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation by Adam Resnick (an Emmy Award-winning writer for NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman) is a 272 page humorous memoir of sorts. I received a copy of the book from the Goodreads First Reads program. While a review isn’t mandatory, of course I’m pleased to write one.
Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and IsolationThis book is exactly what it says it is: lively stories of detachment and isolation. Resnick takes the reader through “chapters” of short narratives about times in his life where he has been expected to be social, and either outright refused or hilariously failed. I learned more about his father than I expected, though–a strong, silent type that would get outrageously pissed off if you breathed the wrong way or made too much noise.
My favorite story from the book included Resnick’s father and a black man that Adam, as a child, had convinced his father to pick up and give a ride on the insistence that the man was his school janitor. As Adam and his friend, in the back of the car, slowly come to the realization that the man is not who they think he is, the situation gets hilarious. Resnick’s father rambles on, calling the man by the janitor’s name and telling him about how he tries to raise his kids right, all the while the man accepts the new name and tries to get to his destination while listening to Adam’s father.
Although there is a connected sense I got from the stories as a narrative, mostly I saw it as just a humorous collection of tales about being anti-social. As someone who spent many years avoiding human contact whenever possible, this really pleased me. Will Not Attend allowed for many chuckles, some real laughs, and a few smirks. Fast paced stories also allowed for a one-sit-down read of the relatively short book. Overall, I would recommend it for a quick chuckle, though probably not worth buying unless you plan to lend it to someone else 4 hours after picking it up.
Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and IsolationThis book is exactly what it says it is: lively stories of detachment and isolation. Resnick takes the reader through “chapters” of short narratives about times in his life where he has been expected to be social, and either outright refused or hilariously failed. I learned more about his father than I expected, though–a strong, silent type that would get outrageously pissed off if you breathed the wrong way or made too much noise.
My favorite story from the book included Resnick’s father and a black man that Adam, as a child, had convinced his father to pick up and give a ride on the insistence that the man was his school janitor. As Adam and his friend, in the back of the car, slowly come to the realization that the man is not who they think he is, the situation gets hilarious. Resnick’s father rambles on, calling the man by the janitor’s name and telling him about how he tries to raise his kids right, all the while the man accepts the new name and tries to get to his destination while listening to Adam’s father.
Although there is a connected sense I got from the stories as a narrative, mostly I saw it as just a humorous collection of tales about being anti-social. As someone who spent many years avoiding human contact whenever possible, this really pleased me. Will Not Attend allowed for many chuckles, some real laughs, and a few smirks. Fast paced stories also allowed for a one-sit-down read of the relatively short book. Overall, I would recommend it for a quick chuckle, though probably not worth buying unless you plan to lend it to someone else 4 hours after picking it up.
June 22, 2014
Summary (from goodreads): Adam Resnick, an Emmy Award-winning writer for NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman, has spent his entire life trying to avoid interaction with people. While courageously admitting to being "euphorically antisocial" and "sick in the head," he allows us to plunge even deeper into his troubled psyche in this unabashedly uproarious memoir-in-essays where we observe Resnick’s committed indifference to family, friends, strangers, and the world at large. His mind shaped by such touchstone events as a traumatic Easter egg hunt when he was six (which solidified his hatred of parties) and overwrought by obsessions, including one with a plastic shopping bag (which solidified his hatred for change), he refuses to be burdened by chores like basic social obligation and personal growth, living instead by his own steadfast rule: "I refuse to do anything I don’t want to do."
Cut from a similar (if somewhat stranger) cloth as Albert Brooks or Louis C.K., Resnick is the crazy, miserable bastard you can’t help rooting for, and the brilliant Will Not Attend showcases this seasoned comedy writer at his brazenly hilarious best.
Cut from a similar (if somewhat stranger) cloth as Albert Brooks or Louis C.K., Resnick is the crazy, miserable bastard you can’t help rooting for, and the brilliant Will Not Attend showcases this seasoned comedy writer at his brazenly hilarious best.
July 7, 2014
This book is exceptionally misanthropic, but it's also funny as hell. Resnick's all encompassing cynicism might not be for everyone, but I don't have a problem laughing at a world where everyone is misshapen, dumb and cruel. (Seriously, the same way everyone is always out to get a Kafka protagonist everyone is out to destroy Resnick in this book.) When I saw that he was going to go to Disneyworld in one of the essays I strapped in because I knew it was going to be good...
There were several times when I laughed out loud because Resnick has a real knack for turning a phrase and most of his asides are perfectly absurd. Add that to his great pacing - each story starts and stops exactly when it should - and his precise eye for tiny details and you get a book that's immensely well written.
There were several times when I laughed out loud because Resnick has a real knack for turning a phrase and most of his asides are perfectly absurd. Add that to his great pacing - each story starts and stops exactly when it should - and his precise eye for tiny details and you get a book that's immensely well written.
March 9, 2015
Some of the stories were hysterical in this book (the first two chapters in particular), and Resnick is a talented and descriptive writer. I ended up on a lower number of stars because in the end, I felt vaguely depressed after reading it. Some stories were just sad or had no real point and, while I can certainly appreciate a story-for-story's-sake thing, the glimpses into Resnick's generally unhappy life were often kind of bleak.
If you like humor, I recommend this book for the first two chapters and another one detailing a handful of phone conversations Resnick had with his father. I was laughing so hard I had tears coming down my face. Just don't expect that tone to last for the entire book, and you will be fine.
If you like humor, I recommend this book for the first two chapters and another one detailing a handful of phone conversations Resnick had with his father. I was laughing so hard I had tears coming down my face. Just don't expect that tone to last for the entire book, and you will be fine.
October 27, 2016
This is exactly the book I needed to read at the minute. It's also the kind of book I would like to write one day -short, shallow, and cheap laughs. The stories are mostly childhood recollections with a few modern parenting stories. I especially liked (though Resnick clearly didn't) reading about his rough and tumble upbringing with five brothers and a father who liked to fight. Three stories in particular stood out - one where he tries to buy weed for a girl he thinks might sleep with him, but becomes distracted by her grandmother's record collection, another where they give a lift to a guy they thought they knew, and another story about trying to dump a piano his daughter briefly wanted. Good clean fun.
February 19, 2019
"Adam, I want you to think about something that upsets you,' Randy began. 'Maybe it's someone you know, someone who's caused you pain. Try to tap into the anger or negative thought patterns you experience during the course of a typical day."
Right off the bat, I felt like a kid in a candy store. The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is bitterness, self-loathing, and fantasies of vengeance.
---
"Excuse me, Mr. Salesman, do you have something that makes no fucking sense? 'Cause I've got my checkbook out.'"
Right off the bat, I felt like a kid in a candy store. The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is bitterness, self-loathing, and fantasies of vengeance.
---
"Excuse me, Mr. Salesman, do you have something that makes no fucking sense? 'Cause I've got my checkbook out.'"
August 2, 2015
Another book of short stories. Again, I don't usually read these but the cover caught my eye at the library and I picked this up. A quick read and so funny at times I laughed out loud. Not great literature by any means but gave it 4 stars anyway.
November 27, 2014
Bitter, dull, and occasionally vulgar (but never in a humorous way), this book bored the hell out of me. What a disappointment!
November 17, 2016
Recommended holiday reading: "Boy refuses to hold frozen turkey."
April 28, 2019
Comic writing at its best. Resnick does mean spirited and privileged better than anybody else. That being said, the book runs a little long and it would have been better served to be leaner and cut out a few of the duds. The book opens with three excellent stories. “Booker’s” in particular is a masterclass of comic tension and suspense, built around the questions of racism and integration. “Playground of the Shrew” takes the fairly moot story of a disastrous Disney World trip and makes it new again by grounding it in Resnick’s utter hatred of his sister-in-law. In these stories, you laugh at how the social contract is broken and you are in the hands of a master who knows that his own wrongdoings only make for better fodder. The final story of the book offers a strong conclusion and a tacit admission of guilt, with Resnick confronting his misanthropic ways and the negative impact he has on his family and community.
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