Oh the Glory of it All by Sean Wilsey -- book review

Oh the Glory of it All is a memoir written by Sean Wilsey, an editor for McSweeney's. Wilsey grew up in San Francisco, the son of a society columnist mother and a self-made millionaire father. This book got tons of great press, and it does have some very interesting bits and some excellent writing along with lots and lots of detail and self-analysis.

Wilsey says that memoirs are essentially an exploration with the purpose of finding the self, and that seems to be true here, but will probably not be the main reason people buy and read this book. Because Wilsey's mother was well-known in San Francisco and his parents' divorce was apparently a lengthy gossip-fest, there are probably a lot of people who will enjoy reading it for an inside glimpse of two very public people. Because Wilsey's stepmother Dede Wilsey has graced the pages of W and other chronicles of fashion and jewels, there are probably a lot of people who will enjoy reading the book for an insider's guide to greed, glamour, and sheer malevolence all wrapped up in a small, blonde, designer-clad woman.

Because I am not congnoscenti of San Francisco society or the machination of the rich, I found the memoir about 200 pages too long. It was a little like The Devil Wears Prada with an insecure child for a victim, instead of a glam intern with an incipient book contract.

Clearly, lots of other people liked it better than me. Maybe they're right. I'd take the ShrinkLit version, if I had it to do over.

Links to Sean Wilsey stuff:

Stepmother ponders lawsuit
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/12/DDGULCN5G31.DTL&type=books

Sean writes to McSweeney's from book tour
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/wilsey/

Interview with Sean Wilsey & Francine du Plessix Gray
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/books/12035/

Nation review
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050829/siegel