Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story

by Roy Blount Jr.

"My mother loved me to pieces, as she often said," writes Roy Blount Jr., "and I'm still trying to pick up the pieces." In the book his readers have been waiting for, our generation's master of full-hearted humor lays open the soul of his life story. Blount—Georgia boy, New York wit, lover of baseball and interesting women, bumbling adventurer, salty-limerick virtuoso, and impassioned father—journeys into his past, and his psyche (and also to China, Manhattan, and sixty feet underwater) in search of the answers to three riddles that have haunted his life: one, the riddle of "the family curse"; two, the riddle of what drives him, or anyone, to be funny; and three, the riddle of what so cruelly tangled his bond to the beguiling orphan girl who became the impossible mother who raised him to Be Sweet. Sardonic and sentimental, hilarious and grieving, brazen and bashful, tough and tender, honest and wayward, Be Sweet resonates with the complex but bouncy chords of a whole man singing, clinkers and all.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Roy Blount Jr. is the author of twenty-three books. The first, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, was expanded into About Three Bricks Shy . . . and the Load Filled Up. It is often called one of the best sports books of all time. His subsequent works have taken on a range of subjects, from Duck Soup, to Robert E. Lee, to what cats are thinking, to how to savor New Orleans, to what it’s like being married to the first woman president of the United States.

Blount is a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, an ex-president of the Authors Guild, a usage consultant for the American Heritage Dictionary, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, and a member of both the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the band the Rock Bottom Remainders.

In 2009, Blount received the University of North Carolina’s Thomas Wolfe Prize. The university cited “his voracious appetite for the way words sound and for what they really mean.” Time places Blount “in the tradition of the great curmudgeons like H. L. Mencken and W. C. Fields.” Norman Mailer has said, “Page for page, Roy Blount is as funny as anyone I’ve read in a long time.” Garrison Keillor told the Paris Review, “Blount is the best. He can be literate, uncouth, and soulful all in one sentence.”

Blount’s essays, articles, stories, and verses have appeared in over one hundred and fifty publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, the Oxford American, and Garden & Gun. He comes from Decatur, Georgia, and lives in western Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Sue Diveley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this were hilarious. Parts were bittersweet. And I hate to say it, but parts were boring. I love Roy Blount, Jr. on Wait! Wait! and eagerly read his columns in Garden & Gun. But this book was a hit and miss with me. Still for a read-a-bit before bedtime book, it wasn't bad.

[Karin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to love it, I really did! It had some great moments but then it just bacame so dull and kind of repeating itself. The chapter on Juniors really ended it for me. Blah.

[Beth Stephenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm finished, or rather, I give up. And how I hate to give up. I was reading this memoir aloud to my husband because he likes me to read aloud to him and because the author is a male, and I thought my husband would relate. And because I wrote and published a memoir a few years back, and the genre fascinates me. My husband asked (begged) me to stop because "it's too rambling," and I must agree. I guess if I didn't have a stack of novels waiting for me I would be more patient with this piece. (As an aside, why is it that a man would want to wax on about the variant state of his penis? This focus confounds me, but I'm sure there is a valid explanation. Still, TMI.

[RYCJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

...Challenging to read, and yet interesting. Requires paying a lot of attention to get through the layered thoughts and long wending sentences often clipped and exchanged for an entirely different life event. Nonetheless, this style of storytelling made the humor coming out of almost nowhere that much funnier. His humor reminds of Woody Allen. Witty, dry, occasionally salty, though be advised not to be drinking or eating while reading. Aspiring writers looking for unique ways to share their stories might want to check this one out.

[Elaine Chapman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I love to listen to Roy Blount Jr., I couldn't get into this memoir. But... give it a try.

[Jerry Wall]

Read for Dahlonega Book Group
Humor and Mother and somewhat of a bio of author..

[Rebecca Brothers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heart Blount! And I'm excited that he's the keynote speaker for the upcoming Conference on Southern Literature, to be held in Chattanooga in April. I mean, who doesn't love to listen to him spout bird-dog-bourbon-good-ole-boy on public radio? He's got those southern smarts that make me so proud; I'm sure Yankees everywhere are puzzled by the accented wit that must seem so unlikely to them. This is a memoir, Blount's tribute (?) to his mama. He's conflicted about her--that's certain. She was a great cook (he'd kill or die to eat her butterbeans again) and a good mother--but her love came at a high price. She apparently felt unlovable and just sort of wallowed in that. Blount was a good sport about it, as much as a boy could be, I suppose. What's simultaneously disconcerting and adorable about the book is it's rambling nature--it's truly as if we've just sort of plopped down in the chair next to his and we're allowed to watch as he drinks his Woodford Reserve (with a film of rubber cement floating on top, if he's not careful) and types, anything and everything that passes through his mind falling onto the page like dropped mouthfuls of soup. If you're not bothered by the mess, in fact, if you like mess, then this is a fantastic read. You have to have the patience of someone who's certain they're drinking and chatting with (or just shutting up and listening to) a funny genius, and you've got to know that it's going to have a lot of derailing that ends up being more interesting than the original course. He's wordy, but all the words are good.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir of Roy Blount, Jr.'s very difficult relationship with his parents, especially his mother, and his reflections on how that turned him into a humorist is certainly well-written. You certainly can hear the familiar Blount voice in it. But getting to the end felt like participating with him in a wrestling match, struggling mightily with his memories of his never-pleased, always-pitiful mother, and the impotence he felt as he tried to be a good son to her. In the end, I mostly just felt tired.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Roy Blount. This memoir is funny and tender at times, but in the end too long (and repetitive) and too psychological. Frankly, Roy, your mother did not seem all that bad to me, just a little needy and awkward (considering her childhood you and your sister had it easy and turned out real well - if not the way she might have wanted). Overall feeling - tiresome.

[Terri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted so badly to like this book. Blount is a great writer and I am a regular reader of his column for Garden and Gun. It's awful though. It's pretentious, disjointed, and repeatedly, awfully sexist. It's like going to dinner with your querulous grandfather and not being able to either leave or drink. Ugh. I gave up halfway through.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm only 118 pages in, and maybe I will have had enough before I run out of book, but, right now, I want to own Be Sweet just so I can revisit the passages that made me laugh the most. And, much like reading David Sedaris, I can "hear" his voice as I read since I've heard him so often on NPR. Delicious.

[Dave Peticolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Blount's memoir. He's a funny guy. He's also a lot more messed up than I would have expected having only encountered him on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quote: I resist lessons: prefer to learn how to do things by plunging in and doing them less and less clearly wrong.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

An excruciatingly and inexplicably dull memoir by a writer who is capable of being extremely funny. A huge disappointment.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting stories about this humorist's life. Well-written, but they don't really grab you. 2 1/2 stars.