How Did I Get Here?

Starred review from March 16, 2015
The title of this memoir by novelist and nonfiction writer Browner (Everything Happens Today) refers to the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime,” recognizable to anyone of his generation (he’s a late boomer/early Generation Xer). But Robert Frost’s well-known poem “The Road Not Taken” supplies the subtitle and becomes much more of a touchstone for Browner. This is an account of an intellectual grappling with midlife regret and what ifs. Browner, a self-avowed “B-list novelist” who left behind the bohemian life for a day job, marriage, and family, examines his choices and wonders whether he can set aside regret and make peace with being “a vaguely affable nonentity who has made all the right decisions for himself and his family except the one decision he needs to make—to once and for all kill off his obsolete, petrified self-image, and fully embrace the happiness that is his due.” There’s nothing glib about this self-help memoir. Full of Boethius and Rilke mixed with self-analysis, it’s a beautifully written, erudite, and thought-provoking examination of the underpinnings of a creative life. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman.

May 1, 2015

As many people do in later midlife, Browner (Everything Happens Today) wondered if he had compromised his dreams by putting his family and job first. He details his quest by dividing his life into five phases: ambition, love, work, fulfillment, and serenity, and examines it and the lives of artists, philosophers, and writers/poets to determine what was and wasn't accomplished. The work the author delivers is a philosophical and psychological pondering of how independent people really are in building their own lives. His conclusion is: people would probably find themselves the same had they chosen another path. VERDICT An exceptional group study guide for academics.

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