The Uncollected David Rakoff

July 15, 2015
A posthumous, clearinghouse collection by the writer and NPR humorist. When Rakoff died of cancer in 2012, he achieved an even higher profile with the publication of his well-received novel in verse, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish (2013), in which much of the bittersweet power stemmed from the fact that the author was in the midst of contemplating his own mortality. The original Kirkus review said that it "provides a fitting memorial to a humorist whose embrace of life encompassed its dark side," and it is republished in its entirety as the closing piece here, comprising almost a quarter of this collection's contents. A couple of lengthy interviews with NPR's Terry Gross also fill a large portion, as Rakoff discusses collections or pieces that aren't in this "uncollected" anthology. There are also transcripts from a few of the author's This American Life contributions, with one finding him responding with the verse of Dr. Seuss to Kafka's Gregor Samsa on his plight as a cockroach (which now seems like a prelude to the verse novel). The rest of the collection is scattershot-travel pieces, op-eds, memoir, one fictional short story, an online diary. Perhaps the best of these stand-alone selections is "The Love that Dare Not Squeak Its Name," originally from Salon, in which Rakoff's interpretation of E.B. White's Stuart Little as a seminal gay icon will make it difficult for readers to see the mouse-child in any other light. In the interviews with Gross, she stresses how "really funny" Rakoff is, and his performances with her confirm it, but humor is rarely the focus of the written pieces and only occasionally the byproduct. Rakoff completists will want this, even though it'll give them two copies of the novel that they already own. A hit-and-miss selection that is more of a footnote to Rakoff's career than a summary of it.

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September 1, 2015

Fans of former This American Life radio commentator Rakoff (1964-2012) will recognize the writer's (Fraud; Half Empty; Don't Get Too Comfortable) voice in this enjoyable anthology of previously uncollected essays, stories, interview transcripts, and more. Themes of family, friendship, and life as a gay man in the 1980s and 1990s run throughout, but dominant is the experience of illness. Whether describing his own Hodgkin's lymphoma (a disease whose radiation treatment later caused a fatal recurrence of cancer in 2012) or the impact of AIDS on his adopted New York, Rakoff writes with eloquence and grace. His voice is a sui generis mix of humor and misery, as when he writes, "the two default directories of my emotional life are to either make jokes about something or to be sad about something and sometimes simultaneously. Sad jokes." VERDICT While the selections can be hit or miss, fans of David Sedaris and Jon Ronson will find the book a fine addition to Rakoff's hilarious body of work; its publication further highlights the loss of his truly original outlook.--Doug Diesenhaus, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

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