son, husband, father, journalist, teacher, and tactical assault clown

Dave Barry has long been known as one of our country’s favorite humorists. His weekly columns ran for decades in hundreds of papers, back when that was a thing. He has written novels, been made into a television show, written for the Oscars, written about politics, co-wrote YA books that were turned into a Broadway musical, written books that became major motion pictures, and won a Pulitzer Prize. And now he’s written a memoir about it all.

Told with the same tongue-in-cheek snark that made him so popular as a columnist, Class Clown starts with the beginning and goes right on through to the now. Barry talks about growing up the son of a Presbyterian minister and a mother with a wicked sense of humor. He and his brothers and sisters didn’t have a perfect childhood, but it was happy. He talks about being in a band in college and then writing for a small newspaper, where he got a chance to write an occasional column.

From there Barry went on to work for the AP, and then taught writing to executives, where he had to become comfortable in front of groups of people. But he kept writing those columns, finding his voice and starting to find an audience. Eventually, he got a job writing a weekly humor column for the Miami Herald, which became his home paper. He wrote columns about news items and about boogers, about exploding toilets and the music of Neil Diamond. He wrote about the birth of his son and the death of his mother. And he wrote a lot about beer.

And that’s just the start of the long list of things Barry has done. Class Clown is his story, told in his words, sometimes with clips from old columns that he wrote. He talks about growing up and his first newspaper job, about his family and his writer friends. He name drops Stephen King and Steve Martin and Oprah, because if you can, why wouldn’t you? But really, he’s pretty humble about all of his accomplishments and hard work. Through this book, Barry strikes the perfect balance of celebrating his past and understanding what’s really important in life. Entertainment matters, laughter is important, but those are not the things that matter the most.

I have been a big fan of Dave Barry for many, many years. There are some of his old columns that I still think about and laugh. I love Mr. Language Person, and I could watch Big Trouble a hundred more times. So it’s not going to be a big surprise that I loved this book. I thought it had a lot of heart, but it’s also smart and funny, with visits to some classic columns as well as stories about his life experiences. He speaks fondly of his friends and his family, with warm humor, and even thanks those who were not fans but wrote to him throughout his career. I think longtime fans of Barry will nod along with these stories, and those who are new to his writing will find an entertaining story about a life well lived.

Egalleys for Class Clown were provided by Simon & Schuster through NetGalley with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.