You’ve heard him upon this American Life! Right now read his book!

Wherever he is, David Rakoff is a fish out of water. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud inside a division store window through the holidays, climbing an icy hill in cheap loafers, playing an bad modeling agent on the daytime soap opera, or learning primitive success skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff doesn’t belong. Nor will he make an effort to. Still, he constantly discovers himself off in the far-flung hinterlands of our culture, about Fraud notebook computer or microphone at hand, wishing to conjure that dyed-in-the-wool NY condescension.

And Rakoff attempts to be unpleasant; heaven knows nothing at all succeeds just like the inexpensive sneer, but he can’t quite help noticing these are real humans he’s authoring. In his attempts not to draw any punches, one of the most harming blows, generally, land squarely on his own jaw–hilariously satirizing the article writer, not the topic.

And therein lays David Rakoff’s genius and his burgeoning appeal. The wry and the heartfelt join in his prose to resurrect that a lot of neglected of literary virtues: wit.

Read the blurbs again on the back. They signal the appearance of a brilliant new American essayist. (Okay, Canadian.)