Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore

April 11, 2016
The very enjoyable second collection of essays by comedian and performer Hill (Tasteful Nudes) centers around his experiences after the death of his mother, with whom he’d been “weirdly inseparable.” Her absence allowed him the opportunity to get better acquainted with his dad, “this mysterious man I’d been running into down in the basement all these years.” Hill’s stories include very a funny account of helping his father move to a retirement home from the Cleveland house he had been living in for more than 40 years and sorting through the “crap” that Hill had been storing there since the early 1990s, including “a stack of charcoal sketches from the 100 percent awesome nude-figure drawing course” he’d taken after college. He also bonds with his dad after the elder Hill learns “Stairway to Heaven” on the piano, and then takes him on his first ride in an 18-wheeler truck. Other essays describe Hill’s childhood, a failed experiment with boxing, and his current life in New York City, including a wonderful look at the difficulties of adopting a rescue dog (“I can’t stay mad at her, though—once I forget about all the biting”) and a recent job writing ringtone messages for a surprisingly pleased Donald Trump (“It was a weird kind of trust to have earned”).