Reviews

Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World by Tosh Berman

zachwerb's review

3.0

Although I enjoyed this book, it is not a memoir or biography of Wallace Berman. He is on the periphery and that is alright, he is a complicated person to parse out. What irked me the most was when the book was only a memoir of Tosh and not the art world or times. When he would speak of sexuality as a teenager and yadda yadda yadda. He had a rich interior for "love" but isn't great in school and has a legendary father. At times I thought it deeply insightful and at times it was name dropping and mediocre prose.

leucocrystal's review

5.0

I swear this only took so long for me to finish because there was about a week there (maybe more?) where my personal life was in unexpected chaos, and then on top of that I also got sick. It's accessible, charming, intriguing, surprising (even for those of us lucky enough to know Tosh personally, because who out there really knows ALL of Tosh?), amusing, and lovely. I love the non-linear format, and the shorter, stream-of-consciousness-like chapters, which make it both easier to get into from any angle, and make me feel a lot more confident about my own memoir writing style (but seriously, folks). It captures a special space in time, a fascinating group of extraordinary and ordinary people floating in and out of his life, and a special writer all at the center of it.