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Oh the Glory of it All
"A memoir, at its heart, is written in order to figure out who you are," writes Sean Wilsey, and indeed, Oh the Glory of it All is compelling proof of his exhaustive personal quest. It's no surprise that as a kid in the '80s, Wilsey found similarities between his own life and his beloved Lord of the Rings and Star Wars--his journey was fraught with unnerving characters too.
Wilsey's father was a distant, wealthy man who used a helicopter when a moped would do and whose mandates included squeegeeing the stall after every shower. Much of Wilsey's youth was spent as subservient to, or rebelling against this imposing man. But the maternal figures in Wilsey's childhood were no less affecting. His mother, a San Francisco society butterfly turned globe-trotting peace promoter, seemed to behave only in extremes--either trying to convince young Sean to commit suicide with her, or arranging impromptu meetings with the Pope and Mikhail Gorbachev. And Dede, his demon of a stepmother, would have made the Brothers Grimm shiver.
As always with memoirs one must take expansive sections of recalled dialogue with a grain of salt, but Wilsey's short, unflinching sentences keep his outlandish story moving too quickly for much quibbling. In the end, Wilsey says, "It took the unlikely combination of the three of them--mother, father, stepmother--to make me who I am." It's a fairly basic conclusion after 479 pages of turning every stone, but it's also one that renders his story--more than shocking or glorious--human. --Brangien Davis
482 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 2005
About the author
Sean Wilsey
18 books39 followersSean Wilsey, the author of a memoir, Oh the Glory of It All, and an essay collection, More Curious, is at work on a translation of Luigi Pirandello’s Uno, Nessuno e Centomila for Archipelago Books and a documentary film about 9/11, IX XI, featuring Roz Chast, Griffin Dunne, and many others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 435 reviews
July 5, 2008
Having worked in publishing, I too often asked myself while reading Oh the Glory of It All, "How the Hell did this get published?" And I did not ask this question because I thought the book was bad. No, it's great. It's weird and funny and engrossing and moving and it takes you to places mostly everyone has never been to. But American publishing doesn't like 450 page memoirs that are weird and long, and this one was published by a major house. I guess the child of famous people gets a leg up in the memoir world, but, really, Sean Wilsey's parents are only famous the readers of San Francisco's society columns. So, I don't get it. But I'm glad someone did. I was totally enamored by Sean Wilsey's voice, and his life was so odd, yet believable, and it was nice to see that he understood it--he is enormously self-aware. There are some problems with the book. First and foremost, it needs editing. And it runs out of steam at the end. And he seems to settling old debts and little too obviously. But those are also reasons to love the book. It's art, awkward and good, not focused group Oprah bait that the publishers are obsessed with putting out nowadays. So, yay.
January 22, 2009
I read this book because I wanted to find out what this editor of McSweeney's own writing is like. The answer: derivative and boring. Wilsey says his family was "like the Royal Tenenbaums." Instead of describing one of his boarding schools, he says the school was like a clinic in a Haruki Murakami book...and then quotes half a chapter from Murakami's Norwegian Wood. The last fifty pages are about Wilsey struggling to finish his memoir after getting his advance.
Happily, I only paid $4 for this book on discount at Borders.
Happily, I only paid $4 for this book on discount at Borders.
September 28, 2007
I love memoirs. Let that be known before I say anything else. I enjoy reading about people's lives, if they're written about in a cool way. I wasn't sure about this one at first, as it started out fairly slow, and Sean Wilsey's writing style takes a while to get used to. I read about his childhood as the only child of two self-obsessed San Francisco socialites, until they went through an ugly divorce, and I was less than impressed. It was a bit dull, I suppose, with tons and tons of outside sources, newspaper clippings and such. It heads into his father's marriage to his mother's (former) best friend, who he had been cheating on his mother with, and for a few while was interested, but then it bogged down again. I'd find myself skipping over large sections that didn't interest me at all.
However, I got to less than halfway through the book, to the part where he gets into high school at an elite, but extremely corrupt boarding school, and it totally took me by surprise. It got really interesting. I couldn't put it down for long periods of time. From that point on, without ruining anything, I loved it. It had a good turn-around too. Just at the point where I was looking at how many pages left and thinking "am I going to have to put up with this little snot through the whole thing?", everything changed, and the book took a totally new direction. I wouldn't tell most people to read this, because they'd have to wade through the first couple hundred pages before getting to anything good, but let's say I'll probably remember stuff from it, which is one of the best things you can hope for in a book like this.
However, I got to less than halfway through the book, to the part where he gets into high school at an elite, but extremely corrupt boarding school, and it totally took me by surprise. It got really interesting. I couldn't put it down for long periods of time. From that point on, without ruining anything, I loved it. It had a good turn-around too. Just at the point where I was looking at how many pages left and thinking "am I going to have to put up with this little snot through the whole thing?", everything changed, and the book took a totally new direction. I wouldn't tell most people to read this, because they'd have to wade through the first couple hundred pages before getting to anything good, but let's say I'll probably remember stuff from it, which is one of the best things you can hope for in a book like this.
November 14, 2009
Near the end of this, Wilsey writes, "I can't wait to write about something besides myself." Well, good, because I can't wait to read about something besides you. It took me months to read this. I took a break to read another book that was almost 1,000 pages that I finished, in comparison, within a couple weeks of picking it up.
Nearly 500 pages of tiny print covering the pages almost entirely. That's a lot for any book, and particularly so for a memoir of dreary content and forced humor.
I can't say that I didn't like it at all - there were moments of true resonance and of genuine interest and comedy, but the bad (or, should I say, unremarkable) far outweighed the good. Lots of people have strange and unfortunate childhoods and adolescences, and lots of people write about them - the trick, I think, is to do it in a way that doesn't make us think your purpose is to condemn the people responsible and to make us feel sorry for you, and that doesn't feel quite so consistently unsavory and boringly written as to become mundane. The pity should come organically, and you need to take at least a modicum of responsibility for who you are - you can't blame it all on other people.
Nearly 500 pages of tiny print covering the pages almost entirely. That's a lot for any book, and particularly so for a memoir of dreary content and forced humor.
I can't say that I didn't like it at all - there were moments of true resonance and of genuine interest and comedy, but the bad (or, should I say, unremarkable) far outweighed the good. Lots of people have strange and unfortunate childhoods and adolescences, and lots of people write about them - the trick, I think, is to do it in a way that doesn't make us think your purpose is to condemn the people responsible and to make us feel sorry for you, and that doesn't feel quite so consistently unsavory and boringly written as to become mundane. The pity should come organically, and you need to take at least a modicum of responsibility for who you are - you can't blame it all on other people.
March 27, 2008
Oh the Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey is an autobiography. In theory it has the potential for a good story. Sean Wilsey and his parents are not people I have heard of before but they have travelled in circles that include the rich and the famous. Sean's parents divorced when he was young and the story of their divorce was a major news event in San Francisco. His father went on to re-marry (an evil step mum), his mother went on to set up a Children for Peace organisation (and has now written her own reply: Oh the Hell of It All), Sean ended up dropping out of school after school.
The beginning of the book, the story of his parent's divorce, the moving between houses is interesting. You can understand his desire to be liked, to be loved. You follow his problems at settling in and school and you agree with his hatred of life in expensive private schools - it appears that lacrosse players have always been bastards! The book follows his descent into alcohol, drugs and skateboarding. His descent through schools that were full of over-privileged children who were going to somewhere to schools full of young adults who were going nowhere to a small school of eight who were trying to find their way back into society. The methods used in each of these schools to help Sean find himself are extreme - much worse than the military school that he ran away from before he even entered the door. And so, as a novel it has its interesting moments.
However, this was the 100 word synopsis that Mr. Wilsey used to sell the book to his publishers. Unfortunately, round about page 300, he gives up on this story and spends the next 150 pages telling the story of his relationship with his father/evil step-mother. Although this could have been a good story it isn't. Instead of writing a tale that is complicated and complex, he just whines and whines and whines. I finished the book but I sped-read the last 100 pages, turning over quickly and reading the odd paragraph here and there, trying to find something that might hold my attention. I didn't.
I finished the book (mainly because I didn't want to abandon another book in mid-stream) but it was with no sense of longing (wishing that I could follow more of the story, more of the characters), nor did I finish it with any sense of joy (feeling uplifted). I finished with more of a sense of "I've finished!"
The beginning of the book, the story of his parent's divorce, the moving between houses is interesting. You can understand his desire to be liked, to be loved. You follow his problems at settling in and school and you agree with his hatred of life in expensive private schools - it appears that lacrosse players have always been bastards! The book follows his descent into alcohol, drugs and skateboarding. His descent through schools that were full of over-privileged children who were going to somewhere to schools full of young adults who were going nowhere to a small school of eight who were trying to find their way back into society. The methods used in each of these schools to help Sean find himself are extreme - much worse than the military school that he ran away from before he even entered the door. And so, as a novel it has its interesting moments.
However, this was the 100 word synopsis that Mr. Wilsey used to sell the book to his publishers. Unfortunately, round about page 300, he gives up on this story and spends the next 150 pages telling the story of his relationship with his father/evil step-mother. Although this could have been a good story it isn't. Instead of writing a tale that is complicated and complex, he just whines and whines and whines. I finished the book but I sped-read the last 100 pages, turning over quickly and reading the odd paragraph here and there, trying to find something that might hold my attention. I didn't.
I finished the book (mainly because I didn't want to abandon another book in mid-stream) but it was with no sense of longing (wishing that I could follow more of the story, more of the characters), nor did I finish it with any sense of joy (feeling uplifted). I finished with more of a sense of "I've finished!"
April 2, 2016
F*ckin Dede Wilsey! Arch-villainness. Evil stepmother. Richer than god. I'm finding this book pretty riveting. Pacific Heights mansions, private helicopters, boarding schools, decadence, it's all in here. You know how I'm obsessed w/ the idle rich
It's also unbearably sad
Interesting, Sean Wilsey's mother wrote her own memoir after this, with basically the same name and cover:
I have them both checked out from the library. Thankfully, his mom's book has a picture section. I wanted to see Dede.
It's also unbearably sad
Interesting, Sean Wilsey's mother wrote her own memoir after this, with basically the same name and cover:
I have them both checked out from the library. Thankfully, his mom's book has a picture section. I wanted to see Dede.
September 9, 2007
I found myself alternately annoyed and enthralled by this book, which sports quite a few of those funny/trenchant moments that make great memoirs. It also provides many opportunities for silly-rich-people rubbernecking; in an attempt to highlight the flamboyant hypocrisy of the world's society pages, Sean Wilsey quotes extensively from newspaper reports of his family's ostentatious doings. More often than not, though, I found myself thinking, "Does anyone actually still read these things? Haven't they been replaced by the far more fascinating reportage of magazines like US Weekly?" and then wondering to what degree I've become culturally clueless in my Bay Area lefty-leftness. Similarly, while I, like, totally feel for anyone who grows up with narcissistic, psychologically abusive parents, I found it hard to sustain any meaningful sympathy for a kid whose crappy parents actually shelled out to have him shipped to an alternative school housed in a 15th century Italian villa. I want to live in a villa, vent my feelings and learn how to garden! Why is life so unfair? Oh the Glory of It All also follows a familiar memoir trajectory: halycon early childhood, family life goes to hell, family life goes further into hell, subject-of-memoir acts and out and quickly hits his/her own personal nadir, then goes on to redemption through a mix of personal pluck, luck and the help of a cast of similarly down-and-out zany characters, with whom the subject is incredibly grateful to have been acquainted. And while Wilsey is fully aware of the done-ness of his themes (check out his chapter titles), he still only manages to smell a whole lot like Augusten Burroughs, only less funny. Wilsey's mama, Pat Montadon, just came out with her own memoir, Oh the Hell of It All, but I'm waiting for a contribution from Wilsey's evil, evil stepmother, DeDe, before I delve back into this family's dirty laundry.
June 10, 2019
I had heard amazing reviews of this book and considering that it mainly takes place in the SF Bay Area, I was interested. It is a very, very long book but I often find that memoirs are? Sean Wilsey wasn't someone whom I was familiar with but his family seems to be legendary. This book broke my heart at times and showed me a lot of growth and self awareness considering that it really went through Wilsey's childhood - thirties. I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in memoirs and SF; also, if you're a child of divorce you may have a particular interest
July 24, 2007
I finished this, and I'm still wondering how I managed to. I heard a lot of buzz about it before it came out, how it was supposed to be scandalous and whatnot. Well, unless you are a huge fan of the San Francisco gossip columns (since the 70's) you won't find anything too interesting here, beyond the first chapter. It seems like an open letter to a family from an emotionally wounded son, yet it goes on for a few too many hundred pages.
December 20, 2007
This follows the autobiographical (though I am sure rather embellished) account of the son of a famous millionaire family (the Wilseys) on the West coast of America. Life must be weird when you grew up around Danielle Steele and I would guess things could only get better from then on. Our protagonist is a wreck and can't seem to get over the separation and divorce of his parents. While it's true that their relationships becomes strained with him caught in the middle and that he is not given the same great attention is new step siblings are, this is no male Cinderella here. The bottom line is that he has thousands more opportunities than most kids get and was raised in luxury. What he did instead of try to work through his issues and prove to his new step mom that he wasn't a complete wastrel is to fulfill her prophesies and flunk out of every rich school his parents sent him to acquiring all kinds of drug habits and venereal diseases in the meantime. As his options wane, the schools become successively more restrictive and like prisons but it's really his own choices and volition that have brought him these consequences and I can't say I felt too sorry for him at all. What I disliked greatly about the book is that I think his point was that you were supposed to feel a little sorry for him. He makes a huge effort with his poor me routine and makes his eventual recovery seem like this magnificent feat when the truth is many more have done greater things with less. The only slight satisfaction I received is that the stepmom, who I hated even more than the main protagonist, probably received her just desserts when the book was released and slandered her.
December 17, 2013
The first third of this looong memoir follows the poor-little-rich boy story of Sean following the divorce of his father, the slightly bizarre and distant Al Wilsey and his mother, the beautiful, peppy, and quixotic Pat Montadon. Al remarries the fiendish Dede Wilsey and Pat decides to save the world from war in a crusade she dubs, Children as Teachers of Peace (a thoroughly woo woo waste of good intentions). It's a well-written and utterly fascinating read. The second third follows Sean's transformation into a delinquent hellion, interesting, but perhaps overly belabored. Do we want to know the name, background, and smoking habits of everyone Sean went to boarding school with? No, Sean, no we do not. The last third is a jumble of Sean growing into well-adjusted adulthood, his father dying, and the writing of the memoir that - quite frankly - bored and annoyed me. Though Sean is a humble, funny, and morally centered person, he still has that rich kid's assurance that every feeling, observation, and experience of his, no matter how small, is of interest. I, however, was reading this book to be entertained by the shennaningans of the super-rich, not to take a master-class in the Wilsey family.
Read
August 6, 2011I've been on a bit of a memoir kick recently, perhaps in an effort to prove to myself my life isn't all that messed up or bizarre. This book is the story of Sean Wilsey, who grew up a child of privilege in San Francisco, raised by his socialite mother and wealthy father...until the bottom dropped out when his parents divorce and his father remarries. Bounced between both households, treated horrendously by his stepmother and stepbrothers, Sean's life becomes increasingly more chaotic as he rebels against everything.
I enjoyed a good portion of this book. Many of Sean's escapades are amusing, heart-warming and/or head-scratching, and his voyage of self-discovery is gratifying. But this book is a lot longer than it needs to be (in my opinion) and goes into a significant amount of detail in adjacent areas of the story that just didn't captivate me. (He spends a significant amount of time on his family history, for example.) And the back and forth with his stepmother and stepbrothers irritated me, although I'm sure much of it was accurate. I'd be interested to see if Wilsey writes another book, and how his experiences shape his future writing.
I enjoyed a good portion of this book. Many of Sean's escapades are amusing, heart-warming and/or head-scratching, and his voyage of self-discovery is gratifying. But this book is a lot longer than it needs to be (in my opinion) and goes into a significant amount of detail in adjacent areas of the story that just didn't captivate me. (He spends a significant amount of time on his family history, for example.) And the back and forth with his stepmother and stepbrothers irritated me, although I'm sure much of it was accurate. I'd be interested to see if Wilsey writes another book, and how his experiences shape his future writing.
April 19, 2013
I read a lot of memoirs and this is by far my very favorite. When I was younger I was a big fan of Dave Eggers' A Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius, feeling finally there was a memoir written from my generation that broke the rules of a lot of its predecessors and was enthralling. in my late 20’s I came out to San Francisco and actually got to work with Dave Eggers at 826 Valencia. He knew what kind of books I liked and he handed me a early proof copy of Oh The Glory of It All. Dave Eggers told me it was the most amazing memoir he has read. On the back of the book he is quoted as saying: "Holy moley this is a great read [...] I've read plenty of true-life-story sorts of books by people I've met, and this is the number one most intriguing, most hilarious, most jaw dropping, most reckless and brilliant and insane." I couldn't agree more. My 65 year-old mother thought the same thing, so it's not a generational thing. current hotshot writer George Saunders is also a huge fan. You should simply read the first five pages and decide for yourself. Brilliant stuff!
September 19, 2022
I picked this up because I was looking for dirt on my nemesis, Dede Wilsey. I got that in spades, but what I didn't expect was a thoughtful story of a rich kid fuckup who slowly learned how to love himself because his parents can't. I'm glad he's okay. Dede is a monster tho
December 29, 2014
“A memoir, at its heart, is written in order to figure out who you are."
As lives go, Sean Wilsey’s was destined for a memoir; the life that he was born into is just too over-the-top to be ignored. Insane wealth, eccentricity, betrayal, confusion, power, celebrity, depression, and redemption are all present and make for a truly unique life story made better by Wilsey’s perspective. He doesn’t write with anger, bitterness or resentment – even though it would have been very easy for him to lapse into self-righteousness – but with the even-handed tone of a man trying to make sense of his wacky life journey.
It all starts with his parents; Wilsey’s mother, Pat Montandon (who has subsequently penned a memoir of her own in response to her son’s version of events, not so subtly entitled “Oh the Hell of It All”), truly has no shortage of needs to suit her expensive tastes and desire for big-named guests to rub shoulders with. To say that she has an outsized personality, prone to mountain highs and canyon lows, would be a terrible understatement. This is a woman who had a fan club for her San Francisco-based TV show in the 60s; regularly lunched with Gloria Steinem, Alex Haley, Joan Baez and more in a 70s-version of Parisian salons; once tried to talk her son (barely a teenager at the time) into a suicide pact to get back at his cheating father, became an unlikely friend and ally of Mikhail Gorbachev over the course of several peace missions ‘behind the Iron Curtain,’ and much, much more. She reflects such a powerful aura on crowds that meeting her, Wilsey recalls, “is like meeting a celebrity you’ve never heard of.” Then there’s his father, Al Wilsey, a butter magnate whose main loves in life are his helicopter, his name (and how often it appears in San Francisco’s crowded society column), his wealth, and his women (emphasis on the plural). Together, the three of them lead an extraordinary life of privilege, minor celebrity, and seeming bliss. And then Al ends it all by divorcing his wife and marrying her best friend, Dede Traina – a wicked socialite who proves to be the fabled evil stepmother come to diamond-studded life.
Suddenly, young Wilsey is adrift and lost at a mere ten years old. He’s shuttled between his mother’s sterile penthouse (which he calls ‘the marble palace’ because every square inch is covered in either marble or mirrors), where she encloses herself like a bear in hibernation to overcome the profound depression that follows Al and Dede’s betrayal, and Dede’s mansion in Pacific Heights, where he must contend with two seemingly perfect stepbrothers, Dede’s stunning hostility, and his father’s newfound embarrassment of him (Dede’s handiwork, as she maneuvers, Lady Macbeth-style, to have her stepson sent away to boarding school). And so begins Wilsey’s quest – not to find himself, but to find a version of himself that his family will notice, admire, and love. But the more he fails to please them, the more desperate and angry he becomes, leading to drugs, stealing, lying, running away, flunking out of numerous schools, and a serious downward spiral as he gets shipped to school after school, reformatory after reformatory. “I felt as if I was reinventing myself with every new place and every abandoned and replaced friendship. Reinventing myself, almost invariably, as a worse and worse person.”
Of course, as all memoirs go, Wilsey eventually has an epiphany and begins to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, but what makes the resolution of his memoir so much more poignant than other examples is that he is clearly still in search of some resolution, as most people who have been hurt are. He needs answers and closure to a degree that he will never adequately get, and this superb memoir is his big gamble to get it all out, examine it as closely as possible, and try to move on with his life.
Still, as with all memoirs, “Oh the Glory of It All” must be taken with a grain of salt. As Wilsey himself notes at one point: “I am pure emotion and pure manipulation united.” Is his version of events the honest, 100% truth? I don’t rightly know, nor do I pretend to; what I can say is this: Wilsey’s memoir is pure joy to read, and I’ll be feverishly recommending it to others (particularly to fans of “Running with Scissors”).
Grade: A
As lives go, Sean Wilsey’s was destined for a memoir; the life that he was born into is just too over-the-top to be ignored. Insane wealth, eccentricity, betrayal, confusion, power, celebrity, depression, and redemption are all present and make for a truly unique life story made better by Wilsey’s perspective. He doesn’t write with anger, bitterness or resentment – even though it would have been very easy for him to lapse into self-righteousness – but with the even-handed tone of a man trying to make sense of his wacky life journey.
It all starts with his parents; Wilsey’s mother, Pat Montandon (who has subsequently penned a memoir of her own in response to her son’s version of events, not so subtly entitled “Oh the Hell of It All”), truly has no shortage of needs to suit her expensive tastes and desire for big-named guests to rub shoulders with. To say that she has an outsized personality, prone to mountain highs and canyon lows, would be a terrible understatement. This is a woman who had a fan club for her San Francisco-based TV show in the 60s; regularly lunched with Gloria Steinem, Alex Haley, Joan Baez and more in a 70s-version of Parisian salons; once tried to talk her son (barely a teenager at the time) into a suicide pact to get back at his cheating father, became an unlikely friend and ally of Mikhail Gorbachev over the course of several peace missions ‘behind the Iron Curtain,’ and much, much more. She reflects such a powerful aura on crowds that meeting her, Wilsey recalls, “is like meeting a celebrity you’ve never heard of.” Then there’s his father, Al Wilsey, a butter magnate whose main loves in life are his helicopter, his name (and how often it appears in San Francisco’s crowded society column), his wealth, and his women (emphasis on the plural). Together, the three of them lead an extraordinary life of privilege, minor celebrity, and seeming bliss. And then Al ends it all by divorcing his wife and marrying her best friend, Dede Traina – a wicked socialite who proves to be the fabled evil stepmother come to diamond-studded life.
Suddenly, young Wilsey is adrift and lost at a mere ten years old. He’s shuttled between his mother’s sterile penthouse (which he calls ‘the marble palace’ because every square inch is covered in either marble or mirrors), where she encloses herself like a bear in hibernation to overcome the profound depression that follows Al and Dede’s betrayal, and Dede’s mansion in Pacific Heights, where he must contend with two seemingly perfect stepbrothers, Dede’s stunning hostility, and his father’s newfound embarrassment of him (Dede’s handiwork, as she maneuvers, Lady Macbeth-style, to have her stepson sent away to boarding school). And so begins Wilsey’s quest – not to find himself, but to find a version of himself that his family will notice, admire, and love. But the more he fails to please them, the more desperate and angry he becomes, leading to drugs, stealing, lying, running away, flunking out of numerous schools, and a serious downward spiral as he gets shipped to school after school, reformatory after reformatory. “I felt as if I was reinventing myself with every new place and every abandoned and replaced friendship. Reinventing myself, almost invariably, as a worse and worse person.”
Of course, as all memoirs go, Wilsey eventually has an epiphany and begins to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, but what makes the resolution of his memoir so much more poignant than other examples is that he is clearly still in search of some resolution, as most people who have been hurt are. He needs answers and closure to a degree that he will never adequately get, and this superb memoir is his big gamble to get it all out, examine it as closely as possible, and try to move on with his life.
Still, as with all memoirs, “Oh the Glory of It All” must be taken with a grain of salt. As Wilsey himself notes at one point: “I am pure emotion and pure manipulation united.” Is his version of events the honest, 100% truth? I don’t rightly know, nor do I pretend to; what I can say is this: Wilsey’s memoir is pure joy to read, and I’ll be feverishly recommending it to others (particularly to fans of “Running with Scissors”).
Grade: A
March 12, 2011
Near the end of Sean Wilsey's hilarious, engrossing coming-of-age memoir, Oh The Glory Of It All, he explains that "A memoir, at its heart, is written in order to figure out who you are." But there are other reasons, too — like outing your evil stepmother as a gold-digging, morally barren ho-bag; like creating a tribute to your dead father, who wasn't always your biggest fan; and like illustrating how different rich people are than we normals.
Rich people are interesting. Crazy people are interesting. And rich, crazy people, like Sean's parents and step-mother, are absolutely fascinating! It all starts with the divorce. Sean's mother and father are the prototypical rich, San Francisco socialites. And their split and the almost immediate re-marriage of his father to another San Francisco socialite, Dede, send shockwaves both through San Francisco society and Sean's delicate rich-kid life. (Random note: Dede's ex-husband then married Danielle Steele, who previously had been having an affair with Sean's dad.)
Sean's childhood and adolescence becomes a mess of under-parenting and over-schooling — he goes through three high schools, literally escaping from the third one, which is a cult-like, brainwashing place called Cascade. His father disowns him, his mother is furious, and Sean's on his own.
Sean's complicated relationship with his parents is the underlying theme of the memoir. His mother wavers back and forth with a strange version of love, and totally using Sean to advance her own agenda. His horrible stepmother Dede never misses any opportunity to flat-out tell Sean what a screw-up he is, and what a disappointment he is to his father. But nevertheless, through all his misbehaving, and despite the fact that his father wants nothing to do with him (Dede's influence!), he still desperately seeks his father's approval.
What's most interesting about the book is about how Sean changes in the reader's eyes several times throughout the memoir. He starts off as a "character" for whom readers have this incredible sympathy because of his horrible parents. At one point, his mother suggests that she and Sean kill themselves together, ostensibly to avenge the divorce! But then he becomes your typical rich kid brat — he's cruel to his boarding-schoolmates, he has no concept of consequences, and he does things for no other reason than to be a jerk, like throwing fruit at cars off the balcony of his mother's 30th floor penthouse. It's not until an arrest and a deal to attend a school in Italy that he finally has the experiences necessary for him to mature, and finally graduate high school at age 20. Then, throughout the last third of the book, we're squarely on his side as he battles Dede and grows into manhood.
This book came out more than five years ago and has been on my shelf most of that time, but it recently showed up on Jonathan Franzen's list of "Four Overlooked Books," so I finally took it down. I loved it! It's absurd at times (Sean is SURE he's going to lose his virginity to his step-mother Dede. But that's before he's SURE he hates her more than any other human in the world.) It's hilarious in a sarcastic, smart, but also understated way. (Sean relates how angry his mother was when she lost to Elie Wiesel for the Nobel Peace Price — "When it was announced that Wiesel had won, Mom, crushed, threw the pyramid (a glass desk ornament) into a mirror." I literally laughed out loud after reading that scene.) And it's even often sad and affecting, especially near the end as Sean relates his father's death. It's a long book, but definitely worth a read.
Rich people are interesting. Crazy people are interesting. And rich, crazy people, like Sean's parents and step-mother, are absolutely fascinating! It all starts with the divorce. Sean's mother and father are the prototypical rich, San Francisco socialites. And their split and the almost immediate re-marriage of his father to another San Francisco socialite, Dede, send shockwaves both through San Francisco society and Sean's delicate rich-kid life. (Random note: Dede's ex-husband then married Danielle Steele, who previously had been having an affair with Sean's dad.)
Sean's childhood and adolescence becomes a mess of under-parenting and over-schooling — he goes through three high schools, literally escaping from the third one, which is a cult-like, brainwashing place called Cascade. His father disowns him, his mother is furious, and Sean's on his own.
Sean's complicated relationship with his parents is the underlying theme of the memoir. His mother wavers back and forth with a strange version of love, and totally using Sean to advance her own agenda. His horrible stepmother Dede never misses any opportunity to flat-out tell Sean what a screw-up he is, and what a disappointment he is to his father. But nevertheless, through all his misbehaving, and despite the fact that his father wants nothing to do with him (Dede's influence!), he still desperately seeks his father's approval.
What's most interesting about the book is about how Sean changes in the reader's eyes several times throughout the memoir. He starts off as a "character" for whom readers have this incredible sympathy because of his horrible parents. At one point, his mother suggests that she and Sean kill themselves together, ostensibly to avenge the divorce! But then he becomes your typical rich kid brat — he's cruel to his boarding-schoolmates, he has no concept of consequences, and he does things for no other reason than to be a jerk, like throwing fruit at cars off the balcony of his mother's 30th floor penthouse. It's not until an arrest and a deal to attend a school in Italy that he finally has the experiences necessary for him to mature, and finally graduate high school at age 20. Then, throughout the last third of the book, we're squarely on his side as he battles Dede and grows into manhood.
This book came out more than five years ago and has been on my shelf most of that time, but it recently showed up on Jonathan Franzen's list of "Four Overlooked Books," so I finally took it down. I loved it! It's absurd at times (Sean is SURE he's going to lose his virginity to his step-mother Dede. But that's before he's SURE he hates her more than any other human in the world.) It's hilarious in a sarcastic, smart, but also understated way. (Sean relates how angry his mother was when she lost to Elie Wiesel for the Nobel Peace Price — "When it was announced that Wiesel had won, Mom, crushed, threw the pyramid (a glass desk ornament) into a mirror." I literally laughed out loud after reading that scene.) And it's even often sad and affecting, especially near the end as Sean relates his father's death. It's a long book, but definitely worth a read.
August 22, 2007
Wilsey's memoir focuses mostly on his teen years, which included a bugfuck mother who took him to Soviet Russia to meet Gorbachev and to Vatican City to meet the Pope; a distant and selfish father (who was also fabulously wealthy -- huh, wonder whether one thing had anything to do with the other? naaaaaah); and a truly wicked stepmother (and not wicked in the sense of "wicked good," either).
Frankly, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. Its effect on me can probably be conveyed best by illustration: I read this book just over a year ago and recently decided to post it on Paperbackswap.com, where it got snapped up quickly. Just for the hell of it, I opened it up and started to read, and found that except for a pretty riveting account of a horrific boot-camp-cum-boarding-school that Wilsey was forced to attend as a teen, I did not remember reading one single word; it was as though I was reading the book for the first time.
Completely forgetting almost every single word of a book that I've read just about a year ago is not exactly a ringing endorsement, for me at least. I think the problem was that Wilsey, who really did have a fascinating yet angst-ridden childhood up through his teen years, came across as a bit smug, as though he hadn't learned much from all his angst except how to spin a good yarn. That's not a bad skill, of course, but in the end, made Wilsey someone I just wouldn't find all that intrinsically interesting if he weren't leaning into my face, asking breathlessly, "Hey, wanna hear all the cool stuff that happened to me?!?! Do ya, huh?!?!" Well, no, I don't, thanks.
Oh, there was one thing I did learn from this book, and do remember: Herb Caen was apparently a miserable prick.
Frankly, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. Its effect on me can probably be conveyed best by illustration: I read this book just over a year ago and recently decided to post it on Paperbackswap.com, where it got snapped up quickly. Just for the hell of it, I opened it up and started to read, and found that except for a pretty riveting account of a horrific boot-camp-cum-boarding-school that Wilsey was forced to attend as a teen, I did not remember reading one single word; it was as though I was reading the book for the first time.
Completely forgetting almost every single word of a book that I've read just about a year ago is not exactly a ringing endorsement, for me at least. I think the problem was that Wilsey, who really did have a fascinating yet angst-ridden childhood up through his teen years, came across as a bit smug, as though he hadn't learned much from all his angst except how to spin a good yarn. That's not a bad skill, of course, but in the end, made Wilsey someone I just wouldn't find all that intrinsically interesting if he weren't leaning into my face, asking breathlessly, "Hey, wanna hear all the cool stuff that happened to me?!?! Do ya, huh?!?!" Well, no, I don't, thanks.
Oh, there was one thing I did learn from this book, and do remember: Herb Caen was apparently a miserable prick.
January 18, 2008
This book made be feel a bit uncomfortable reading about personal and family matters that normally shouldn't be made public. But I enjoyed it anyway. The writing is good and carries the reader's interest. The story ends well with the teenager who was a royal screw-up finally becoming enough of a mature adult to write this book. Thank goodness he survived his childhood. The story makes me thankful that I wasn't born rich.
The following is from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for October 10, 2012:
A LIFE
Sean Wilsey is like some latter-day Cinderella, ruled by the machinations of a wicked stepmother but with a socially elite childhood. Rather than a ball and a happy ending, Wilsey gets Italian reform school, but it’s all told with manically entertaining wit. Elle called the memoir “wild, wise and whip-smart.” Think of it as Stepmommy Dearest.
OH, THE GLORY OF IT ALL , by Sean Wilsey (Penguin, 2006)
The following is from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for October 17, 2007:
The Critics Rave
“Wilsey’s portrait of a scheming stepmother is...deliciously searing...and convincing.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Rollicking, ruthless, though ultimately generous-hearted.”—Vogue
“Holy moley this is a great read—probably the most compulsively readable book I’ve picked up in years.”—Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Wilsey grew up in 1980s San Francisco with a germaphobe millionaire father, an erratic socialite mother, and a wicked stepmother. His memoir of them and his wild ride of a childhood is not to be missed.
OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL , by Sean Wilsey (The Penguin Press, 2005)
The following is from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for October 10, 2012:
A LIFE
Sean Wilsey is like some latter-day Cinderella, ruled by the machinations of a wicked stepmother but with a socially elite childhood. Rather than a ball and a happy ending, Wilsey gets Italian reform school, but it’s all told with manically entertaining wit. Elle called the memoir “wild, wise and whip-smart.” Think of it as Stepmommy Dearest.
OH, THE GLORY OF IT ALL , by Sean Wilsey (Penguin, 2006)
The following is from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for October 17, 2007:
The Critics Rave
“Wilsey’s portrait of a scheming stepmother is...deliciously searing...and convincing.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Rollicking, ruthless, though ultimately generous-hearted.”—Vogue
“Holy moley this is a great read—probably the most compulsively readable book I’ve picked up in years.”—Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Wilsey grew up in 1980s San Francisco with a germaphobe millionaire father, an erratic socialite mother, and a wicked stepmother. His memoir of them and his wild ride of a childhood is not to be missed.
OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL , by Sean Wilsey (The Penguin Press, 2005)
June 7, 2008
This is a memoir of a privileged young man living among the glitterati of San Francisco in the mid-1970s. It's also a portrayal of an incredibly dysfunctional family, but this is not the usual Sturm und Drang one finds in the typical dsyfunctional family memoir. Rather, Wilsey bares his family's bones so devastatingly that hilarity ensues. Wilsey's mother, in particular, is nearly unbelievable. Wilsey's family--wealthy socialites--come from a different planet as far as I'm concerenced, so I was surprised by the end of the book how emotionally involved I had become with them.
Wilsey doesn't hesitate to examine himself, either, and part of the great charm of this memoir is his climb from rebellious, irresponsible brat to, well, memoir writer. Wilsey is forced into several schools for troubled youth, and the curricula of these schools is as unbelievable as the personalities of Wilsey's family members. It's a wonder that Wilsey emerges from this background as likable as he does--other than his wealthy parents, he has nothing going for him.
I picked up this book based on the numerous blurbs contained on the first few pages. If I had just heard what the book was about, I would not think that a privileged brat like Wilsey would have anything to say to me. Fortunately, I let the blurbs sway me into the book, and Wilsey's engaging, pop-culture savvy style and emotional honesty took me the rest of the way. A memorable and moving story.
Wilsey doesn't hesitate to examine himself, either, and part of the great charm of this memoir is his climb from rebellious, irresponsible brat to, well, memoir writer. Wilsey is forced into several schools for troubled youth, and the curricula of these schools is as unbelievable as the personalities of Wilsey's family members. It's a wonder that Wilsey emerges from this background as likable as he does--other than his wealthy parents, he has nothing going for him.
I picked up this book based on the numerous blurbs contained on the first few pages. If I had just heard what the book was about, I would not think that a privileged brat like Wilsey would have anything to say to me. Fortunately, I let the blurbs sway me into the book, and Wilsey's engaging, pop-culture savvy style and emotional honesty took me the rest of the way. A memorable and moving story.
April 6, 2008
Addicting Obsessive fluff.
I bought this book at the Hong Kong airport last August and it has been my favorite flight companion since then. I was able to put the book down between flights, but the detail and depth of this long-winded memoir are so rich that the author has built a San Francisco high rise in my head.
The intimacy of Sean's tween/teenage confession brought me into the world of my new, wealthy, bad boy, wanna-be cool kid friend, suffering from his own entrapment in desire and frustration. Sean does not stifle his compulsion to be seen as tragically comic martyr. The language carries a freshness of naive youth, while simultaneously demonstrating profound grown-up wisdom and humor for the petty melodrama of it all. The writing is psychologically insightful into a mind of privileged youth, unable to adapt, and crippled by anxiety and self-doubt.
I loved how the infantile nature of Sean's emotional longing drew me into feeling like Sean's friend, and parent, while simultaneously knowing that despite his struggles with his narcissistic family, the apple does not fall too far from the tree. There is not much to the narrative of this book, the real juice of it is for the reader who would like to get into the mind of Sean, a not-so-privileged rich kid from 80s San Francisco.
This book is a must read for a window into the struggles of teenage autonomy, family dynamic and the development of addictive neurosis.
I bought this book at the Hong Kong airport last August and it has been my favorite flight companion since then. I was able to put the book down between flights, but the detail and depth of this long-winded memoir are so rich that the author has built a San Francisco high rise in my head.
The intimacy of Sean's tween/teenage confession brought me into the world of my new, wealthy, bad boy, wanna-be cool kid friend, suffering from his own entrapment in desire and frustration. Sean does not stifle his compulsion to be seen as tragically comic martyr. The language carries a freshness of naive youth, while simultaneously demonstrating profound grown-up wisdom and humor for the petty melodrama of it all. The writing is psychologically insightful into a mind of privileged youth, unable to adapt, and crippled by anxiety and self-doubt.
I loved how the infantile nature of Sean's emotional longing drew me into feeling like Sean's friend, and parent, while simultaneously knowing that despite his struggles with his narcissistic family, the apple does not fall too far from the tree. There is not much to the narrative of this book, the real juice of it is for the reader who would like to get into the mind of Sean, a not-so-privileged rich kid from 80s San Francisco.
This book is a must read for a window into the struggles of teenage autonomy, family dynamic and the development of addictive neurosis.
November 26, 2015
This book was a very long tirade by a grown man against his parents, stepmother, and stepbrothers. I like memoirs, generally speaking, but this one was mostly tedious. I kept waiting for the day when Sean would wake up and see that he was self-destructing in a years-long temper tantrum of selfishness.
I listen to my son telling stories to his wife and friends, and I wonder what universe he was inhabiting. His memories and mine are miles apart on so many things. Listening to Sean's endless list of grievances against his family makes me wonder what was the truth of the matter. No, his life was not a bed of roses, but most of his problems with his father were of his own making. His stepmother is a different story. She probably was the evil stepmother he describes.
I had started this book years ago, put it aside, and recently found and finished it. I am glad to be done with it.
I listen to my son telling stories to his wife and friends, and I wonder what universe he was inhabiting. His memories and mine are miles apart on so many things. Listening to Sean's endless list of grievances against his family makes me wonder what was the truth of the matter. No, his life was not a bed of roses, but most of his problems with his father were of his own making. His stepmother is a different story. She probably was the evil stepmother he describes.
I had started this book years ago, put it aside, and recently found and finished it. I am glad to be done with it.
April 15, 2014
This is truly one of the weirdest memoirs I have ever read. I have no idea how it got published, but I don't care. It's mind-bogglingly awesome. It definitely could have used a harsher editor and Wilsey seems to lose his way at the end, but this is a fascinating glimpse into a truly bizarre upbringing.
I should add that my clock radio went off to a NPR story about San Francisco that used some sound bites of Dee Young while I was in the midst of reading this, and it was kind of a terrifying way to wake up since I felt she was a monster of a person and a horrible stepmother.
I also found the information about Danielle Steel to be fascinating.
I should add that my clock radio went off to a NPR story about San Francisco that used some sound bites of Dee Young while I was in the midst of reading this, and it was kind of a terrifying way to wake up since I felt she was a monster of a person and a horrible stepmother.
I also found the information about Danielle Steel to be fascinating.
July 26, 2015
After reading Sean Wilsey's memoir, I need to thank my dad for the gift of a relatively dull, middle class, suburban adolescence. But wow, what an engrossing story! Wilsey is exactly my age, and we have many of the same cultural touch points, minus the reform schools, the helicopters, the Danielle Steele encounters, and luckily, the evil stepmother. I'm relieved that Wilsey has at last found comfort with his journalist wife and his own children, and (as much as this can be said about a young man) has made his own happy ending.
August 28, 2008
This guy's story is a pretty perfect example of why the rich aren't necessarily to be envied. Not that some of us regular folks don't experience some of the problems that he confronted in his formative years, but, man, if detached rich people don't come up with some new and interesting crap to throw at their kids. This is a good story, and though primarily a memoir, secondarily it acts as a descriptive tour of the San Francisco and Marin areas in which he grew up.
November 4, 2014
Interesting memoir of the authors various experiences growing up. From brushes with celebrities, to traveling the world, skateboarding in SF, to being sent to experimental boarding schools. If you grew up in the 80's this will definitely resonate with you.
December 20, 2014
I agree with those who have said this book could have used a lot more editing. Too long with too much unnecessary detail. Above all I had a difficult time relating to the author--I didnt feel any rapport with him and that lessened the book's overall impact on me.
January 19, 2016
A good example of a book that gets better upon reflection. I read it 10 months ago, and parts of it still come back to me at random. It helps that I am currently reading 'Norwegian Wood' by Murakami, which is largely featured in the memoir. I changed my review from 3 stars to 4.
January 3, 2017
I tried and tried, but the scattered way the book is written plus characters it is impossible to care about just made me finally give up around page 150 or so.
February 5, 2012
SF society : the good, bad and scathingly funny.
August 2, 2013
The first portion of this book: 5 stars. An essential skill in storytelling is knowing when to stop.
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