A review by whatsnonfiction
The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait by Blake Bailey

4.0

This was so extraordinarily written and darkly hilarious and honest and pretty much everything I love in a memoir. I only can't say it's perfect because it was just so painful sometimes. That's not fair, of course - it's someone's experience and it's what happened and how they acted and how they felt, but it feels gut wrenching even with the remove that Bailey uses to describe events particularly in the latter half. And thankfully there is some remove, because when he shows how much this hurts, it's something. There's a line where he writes, recalling one such scene, that he couldn't bear it then and he still can't now. It's haunting.

I can't imagine this appealing to everyone - you've got to be willing and able to spend time with a fairly difficult and troubling bunch of people, author included - and stomach some serious, disturbing subjects and the downward trajectory of a lost and hurting person, but if you can, this is some kind of brilliance. The best writing I've read in a long time.