Book Review: Don't Get Too Comfortable

This is a review of Don't Get Too Comfortable, a book by David Rakoff published by Broadway Books, Doubleday (225 pages, $12.95 paperback, ISBN 0767916034).

Consumers of alternative urban humor essays may feel like Goldilocks these days. They have tried the biting wit of Fran Lebowitz, but her writing is not prolific enough to satisfy. They have tried the sardonic observations of David Sedaris, but his writing can be a bit too raunchy for some tastes. They have tried the stinging confessions of Augusten Burroughs, but his writing may lack the world view many readers need for nourishment.

Along comes David Rakoff. Ahhh, just right.

Rakoff's second collection of essays, titled Don't Get Too Comfortable, now available in its paperback edition, sets a permanent place for him at the table of artful kvetchers. Rakoff is a frequent contributor to "This American Life" on Public Radio International and his work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Salon and Gentleman's Quarterly. In keeping with the current publishing trend of maximizing precious talk show minutes by attaching impossibly long and overly descriptive subtitles to books, this one has such a tag that reads, "The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems."

If there is a common theme to these various essays, it is that phrase "First World Problems." Rakoff has nothing but creative contempt for drinkers of single malt Scotch who need compatible ice cubes frozen from a Scottish Highland river FedEx-ed to their doorstep. He feels "we have become an army of multiply chemically sensitive, high-maintenance princesses trying to make our way through a world full of irksome peas."

Rakoff likes to think that being Canadian and being gay are qualities that place him on the fringe. Quite to the contrary, those are credentials that place him smack in the pantheon of modern humorists. If any condition makes him different, it is his ability to write. His outrage, his incredulity and his dissent are channeled into genuinely funny screeds that don't merely entertain, they can leave whip marks.

He travels to Paris on assignment in one of his essays and his magazine has made reservations for him at a posh hotel. His driver warns him just how ritzy the hotel is: "It is very chic and the people who work there are very beautiful, so if you want something, you must ask three times." In another piece, Rakoff is astounded by a lobbying group called the Log Cabin Republicans, which is the largest gay organization in the GOP. He calls this "a creature that seems to invite its own devouring; the cow helpfully outlining its tastiest cuts on its side with chalk, while happily pouring the A-1 sauce over its own head."

The highest compliment Rakoff can pay a situation is to state, "I am not bored yet." However, it is a good bet that he will be soon. It is to the reader's delight when he reaches his threshold because that is when the amazing invectives fly. The richest example of this is from the entry titled "I Can't Get It For You Wholesale" which is about the French couture collections and their seasonal fashion shows. Much purple prose has already been written about this over-the-top annual ritual and Rakoff is the first to admit it. But he soldiers along until he finally hits the wall. He overdoses on "pretty things" and lapses into a heat-prostrated, hoi polloi rant that is read-aloud hilarious. Granted, it is less than one page, but it is a rant nevertheless.

There are only a few problems with this collection worth mentioning. One is the aspect of timeliness. Some of the essays show their age, such as the study of the urge to make things which mentions that Martha Stewart is still behind bars at the time of its writing. There is no need to date itself, except to underscore Rakoff's safe prediction that Stewart's reemergence will be a triumph, and the stroke of an editor's pencil would have cured this. Another issue is the lack of an introduction, either by Rakoff or a guest writer, to take an overview of these otherwise disconnected offerings and give the reader a road map. Instead, we are expected to navigate these essays with nothing but the cumbersome subtitle for a compass. It must be said, however, that we soon find our way.