Review: The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro

Dear Lit Loves,
 My husband picked up my most recent book purchase, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro, and he said "I seriously hope the NSA doesn't show up at our front door." I just started laughing hysterically.  This most recent read is an interesting way to take on memoir:  the author writes short/long essays pulling from specific experiences in her life as opposed to one long time span.  Some of the chapters relate to one another and other chapters take off on an entirely unrelated tangent.  Ms. Notaro is a very spirited, feisty writer.  I had to check to make sure she wasn't a southerner; sure enough, she hails from Brooklyn, New York.  You know, that's where the Beastie Boys are from as well.

I have to say I will probably never move to Arizona after reading about this author's experiences there.  Just the description of the heat and desert conditions was enough to make me think twice about even visiting Arizona.  The  neighborhood in which she lived in Arizona was quite unique.  I must admit I've seen my share of suspicious characters in the northern suburbs of metropolitan Atlanta; however, I have never received a letter in the mail informing me a pedophile or rapist was moving into a home near me.  Just to be on the safe side I looked up where the nearest predatory individuals live in Georgia and big surprise, just two miles from my home!   I do understand Ms. Notaro's getting attached to a house and finding it hard to move.

You will have a whole new appreciation for the incidents and situations repair men and women go through after reading about Ms. Notaro's adventures while someone visited her house to repair a tread mill or elliptical trainer.  Let's put it this way, her husband and I were both mortified.  This author can keep you in stitches just talking about the weather.  And I dearly loved when she moved to Eugene, Oregon so her husband could attend graduate school and she was tailgated by people she classified as hippies.  Bad things happened though when the hippies decided to lay on their horn while the author was attempting a turn.  The same tendency overcomes me when people in Atlanta cut me off in heavy traffic on Interstate 85.

The best chapter in this book is the last one in which the author and her close friend decide to take an Alaskan cruise.  From the tiny cabin they are assigned to the adventures off the ship, I could not stop laughing.  This is a book to read when you need a serious laugh and a hilarious distraction.  I highly recommend it.

Till my next update,
Grace