His life is an open book he mines for laughs
In the course of his new book, "(Not That You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions," to be released Tuesday, Steve Almond relives some of his most embarrassing sexual encounters, fights Sean Hannity for airtime on Fox News, declares himself the Red Sox Anti-Christ, and almost kills his infant daughter several times (or thinks he does). And while he might not have thought so at the time, every painful moment of it was funny in one way or another. At least, now it is.
"The only way to survive that kind of mortification is to get a grip, enjoy the humor of it," he says. "Yeah, you're right, it was awful, but you're not dead, you got through it, and everybody lives in that state of mortification, either privately or publicly. I just happen to do it a lot more publicly."
It's an approach the Arlington-based Almond hopes will engage readers with their own empathy, their ability to recognize hope and despair in those around them, and still make them laugh. It's a tough balance, one managed masterfully by one of Almond's early literary heroes, Kurt Vonnegut, whom he profiles in a piece called "Why I Crush on Vonnegut."
The book started out as a biography of Vonnegut before his publisher requested a book of essays, and "Why I Crush" reveals as much about Almond as it does about the "Slaughterhouse Five" author. And even though few witnessed the depths of misery Vonnegut saw - he survived the firebombing of Dresden in World War II as a POW only to return home to his mother's suicide - Almond aspires to write in much the same way.
Whether he's writing about shoplifting condoms as a teen or the public flap after he resigned his adjunct professorship at Boston College over the school's choice of a keynote speaker, Condoleezza Rice, Almond is self-consciously provocative but loaded with hubris and humanity. And he is always the butt of his own joke.
"I hope that this new book is doing the serious work of the sort that Vonnegut did way better than me, but still, I hope that we basically have the same mission," he says. "I'm just trying to wrap it in stuff that doesn't make it taste like medicine."
Almond grew up listening to albums from stand-up comedians such as Steve Martin and Richard Pryor and sees a bit of their influence in his philosophy as well. To Almond, Vonnegut and Pryor were both truth-tellers, with similar goals.
"It doesn't matter whether it's Richard Pryor or Lenny Bruce or Saul Bellow or John Updike or Toni Morrison," he says. "All of those people are saying, 'Dude, life is difficult and crazy and complicated and I know it and my characters know it and they're living it, and you will feel less alone with your mishegas [craziness] . . . if you plug into that.' "
To that end, Almond feels obligated to use readings like his Thursday appearance at Brookline Booksmith to show people, in what he calls a "semi-literate culture," that literature with a capital "L" isn't boring, that it's actually life-affirming and, of all things, fun.
"There is something for me about catching people who aren't necessarily hard-core readers," he says, "not just preaching to the converted, that doing a reading sometimes gets to a larger group or gets people to take more seriously reading one of my books or a book in general."
Around town
Russell Peters plays the Comedy Connection tonight and tomorrow. ImprovBoston's GoonFest II continues through Sunday. Stephen Lynch plays the Berklee Performance Center Thursday. 