Reviews
Our Reviews
What Our Client Says
I picked this up expecting a light read and ended up finishing it in two sittings. Tyler has an extraordinary ability to be funny and genuinely touching in the same paragraph. The chapter about his sons is something I’ll be thinking about for a long time. This is the kind of book you press into someone else’s hands the moment you’re done.
Margaret H.
There is real craft here. Tyler writes the way a great storyteller talks with timing, economy, and an eye for the detail that changes everything. The Passenger chapter alone is worth the price of admission. I wasn’t expecting to be moved by a book that opens with a gas can, but here we are
David K.
I recommended this to my book club, and we spent most of our discussion trying to agree on a favorite chapter. We couldn’t. The Gas Can Incident had everyone in stitches. The eulogy for his mother left us quiet for a few minutes. Tyler moves between the two registers effortlessly, which is not an easy thing to do.
Patricia M.
I went to Indiana University around the same time Tyler did, and reading Trial by Podium felt like looking in a mirror a very uncomfortable, very funny mirror. This is a book that rewards readers who take their time with it. Don’t rush it. Every chapter has something worth sitting with.
Robert L.
I’m not usually a memoir reader, but a friend insisted, and I’m so glad she did. Tyler is genuinely funny not in a performed way, but in the way that comes from someone who has actually thought carefully about why things are funny. The Buffkin House chapter had me reading passages aloud to my husband. He wants his own copy.
Ellen F.
The Joe, Jimmy, and Jack section at the end of the book is something special. Tyler captures what it actually feels like to be a parent, the exhaustion, the wonder, the conversations you don’t expect to be profound until they are. I’ve been a father for twelve years, and this book gave me language for things I hadn’t been able to articulate.
James T.
What I appreciate most about Tyler’s writing is that he never moralizes. He tells you what happened, with tremendous honesty, and trusts you to draw your own conclusions. The result is a book that respects its readers enormously. I’ve read a lot of personal essay collections. This one stands out.
Susan G.
Tyler’s background as a social worker shows throughout not in a clinical way, but in his genuine curiosity about people and his refusal to judge them, including himself. The Wedding chapter is brilliantly structured and laugh-out-loud funny from start to finish. Highly recommend to anyone who enjoys smart, honest writing about real life
Thomas B.
I gave this to my husband for his birthday and ended up reading it before he did. The Raising Riley chapter narrated from the dog’s perspective is one of the most creative and warmhearted things I’ve read in years. There is an enormous amount of love in this book, even in the chapters that are mostly about disaster.
Carol N.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from a book with a title like that, but the writing won me over immediately. Tyler has a voice that is completely his own, dry, warm, slightly philosophical, and always honest. The essay about his parents is quietly devastating. The one about the gas can is chaos of the best kind. I’ll be recommending this for a long time.
Andrew M.