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My Life of Crime: Essays and Other Entertainments Paperback – September 15, 2022

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

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An awkward visit to a nude beach. A bike-pedaling angel careening through rush-hour traffic. The mystery of a sandwich found in a bathroom stall. A lyric, rainy-day ramble through the East Village. With the personal essays (and three other entertainments) in this debut collection, Tyler C. Gore reveals the artistic secrets of his life of crime: a charming wit, compassionate observation, perfection of style, and, over all, a winsomely colorful light tinged with just enough despair. Whether stewing over a subway encounter with a deranged businessman, confessing his sordid past as a prankster, or recounting his family's history of hoarding, Gore is by turns melancholy, profound and hilarious. The collection culminates with the novella-length essay "Appendix," a twisted, sprawling account of routine surgery that grapples with evolution, mortality, strangely attractive doctors, simulated universes, and an anorexic cat. My Life of Crime conjures up from the flotsam of an individual life something uncannily majestic: an insomniac contemplation of life in our eternal, twenty-four-hour New York City, infused throughout with its grit, humanity, unexpected romance, and the poignant intimacy of all the lives joined together within it.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"You're laughing, he's laughing, and you barely notice when things go sideways—when the pain, the worry, the grief that underscore even the funniest moments in life make you swallow the lump that has formed in the back of your throat and hold your breath until he makes you laugh again...[An] immensely readable book." —Patricia Ann McNair, The Washington Independent Review of Books

"[His] devotion to both his beleaguered wife and to his rescued street cat reveal Gore to be a man as lovable as he is eccentric. Life may be serious, but Tyler C. Gore is exceedingly funny..."
—Jacob M. Appel, MD, Heavy Feather Review

"Addictive...Gore's piercingly funny essays recall David Sedaris or David Foster Wallace, but more visceral, less genteel."
—David Winner, author of Enemy Combatant

"Tyler Gore writes with the gleeful, soulful wisdom of a fallen angel."
—Anne Pierson Wiese, author of Floating City

"A great writer and a subtle humorist. Oh, and besides that, Tyler loves cats."
—Vick Mickunas, NPR's The Book Nook with Vick Mickunas

"
My Life of Crime takes us on a wild ride that veers from the marvelously surreal to the uproariously funny, from the gleefully unhinged to the soberingly poignant..." —E.G. Scott, author of The Woman Inside and The Rule of Three

"Tyler Gore is mischievously funny, with a wicked sense of timing...In
My Life of Crime, he infuses the mundane occurrences of everyday existence—jury duty, run-ins with neighbors, walks on the beach—with intrigue and profundity...An essayist at the top of his form." —Sarah Stodola, author of The Last Resort

"Nimble, poignant and full of gratifying surprises, Gore's essays illuminate the tragicomic depths of everyday life."
—George Prochnik, author of I Dream with Open Eyes: A Memoir

"Tyler Gore gives voice to Generation X in this hilarious, deeply irreverent, and intensely moving collection of essays. With its mix of high-low culture,
My Life of Crime is a triumph of entertainment as enlightenment." —Alice Stephens, author of Famous Adopted People

"One of the thrilling things about
My Life of Crime is the way it slides so suddenly and effectively from one mode to another. Funny, self-deprecatory tales of nude beaches, prank calls, and sandwiches discovered in public bathrooms morph to a thought-provoking depiction of an appendectomy a few years before Covid." StatORec

"I loved this book...wry, irascible, opinionated, but shot through with [Gore's] love for his wife and his cat..."
—John Patrick Higgins, Director of Goat Songs

"The irreverence and piercing social acuity that epitomize the writing of Tyler Gore are on full display in this fabulous career-spanning compendium."
—Ben Miller, author of River Bend Chronicle

"The essay that sticks with me is 'Stuff,' a tragic family story about hoarding. It's sobering and sad, and I think about it a lot."
—Books on GIF

About the Author

Tyler C. Gore has been cited five times as a Notable Essayist by The Best American Essays. He lives in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sagging Meniscus Press (September 15, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 292 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1952386373
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1952386374
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.3 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.66 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

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Tyler C Gore
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Tyler C. Gore has been cited five times as a Notable Essayist by The Best American Essays annual anthology, as well as a citation from The Best American Non-Required Reading anthology. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College, and is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship for Creative Writing.

His essays, short fiction and columns have appeared in many publications, including Bloom, Literal Latte, MeThree, StatORec, Lungfull, Opium Magazine, The American: In Italia, Exacting Clam, Rosebud, and The Washington Independent Review of Books.

He is also, from time to time, a graphic designer and digital artist.

He lives in New York City in a dilapidated walk-up with his wife, his cat, and several uninvited rats.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2022
    This is a great collection of pieces which I would highly recommend to anyone, particularly those who love New York City. Tyler Gore's wry observations and mordant wit are conveyed in a language full of literary panache and conversational intimacy. I couldn't put it down and I often found myself laughing out loud or nodding along in agreement. His description of losing consciousness under a general anesthetic is the best that I've read (or maybe heard, is a better way of putting it - he has the enviable gift of making you feel that he has pulled up a chair next to you and is telling you another anecdote) and his evocation of New York during the pandemic reduced this reader to tears. Definitely a book to treasure.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2022
    This book is to be enjoyed at the pool, at the beach, on the bus or train, indoors or outdoors. I’m at a point where the end is approaching and I don’t really want that to happen. Growing up in NYC in temporal proximity to Tyler, I can relate to many of his accounts. My brother in law and I both miss the city of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and pretty early on I knew I had to order a copy of this book for him. Tyler’s narrative is both hilarious and precise. A pure joy to read!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2022
    I just finished My Life of Crime and absolutely loved it! An awesome read from start to finish that made me giggle out loud. I didn't want it to end and I'm anxiously awaiting Tyler Gore's next book. Witty, relatable, and delightfully funny. I highly recommend!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2023
    Tyler Gore's 'My Life In Crime' is the best book I've read in a long time - engaging in a super comfortable way, like hanging out with one of the best storytellers/raconteurs you've ever met. I found myself laughing out loud on the subway, where I do most of my reading.

    The book is a collection of 12 essays, the first eleven almost like tapas - little appetizers of memoir and imagination taking us to page 76. The final essay, Appendix, nearly 200 pages long, is the main course, a journey through the physical challenges and foibles our bodies and those we love face as we age or encounter unexpected health crises.

    Gore's writing, especially his earlier essays, often reminded me of all the crazy scenes and characters I encountered exploring NYC as a young adult in the early 1990s. These are the kinds of stories I'd write old-fashioned letters home about, trying to convey how mind-blowing, eye-opening, and wild it was to live here. It was a great adventure, and Gore's eye for detail brings it all back to life. But throughout the book (especially in its central essay, Appendix, set in recent years), Gore seasons the very relatable humor and down-to-earth charm of his writing with a poetry and poignancy that only come with time and hard-earned experience.

    This is a book from someone who loves humanity and all the messy, complicated, and often silly ways people stumble through life. Gore's stumbling along with us, making us laugh every step of the way.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2022
    Tyler Gore’s laugh-out-loud style is akin to attending a NYC comedy club: wind your way through the beer and whiskey spillage, take a seat, and enjoy these stories of Gore’s youthful (and not-so-youthful) escapades, packed with humor and snappy social commentary that makes you see life as it is: poignant moments mixed with groans—our own growing pains of becoming self-aware — topped with surprise payoffs and, yes, laughter.

    Gore may not be “a particularly clever thief,” as he says in the introduction to this collection of personal stories drawn from his life—but he is a witty writer with depth. In the first essay, he confesses the nature of his past “crimes” with a story of pranks (pulled off while he was living in his suburban hometown just outside of NYC) that seem almost impossible in the age of the Internet and cellphones— an unnerving and funny bone-tickling historic representation of a time that was but told with a 21st-century awareness.

    But that’s just the first story in this marvelous collection. Gore’s tales of his life in New York City – including the long essay “Appendix,” which encompasses not just the often-hilarious story of his “routine” appendix surgery, but also his marriage, his Brooklyn neighbors, his cat, and his random thoughts about evolution and mortality — built from his clutter of life, his baubles of shiny experiences – to construct a personal history that many of us can relate to… and we cannot help but laugh.
    Highly recommended.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2022
    I absolutely loved this collection of essays. I admit there was "stuff" I didn't read yet, including the appendix. I'm not a dedicated appendix reader; but, here I saved the best for last. Plus, I don't like good things to be over yet, so I'm happy there is more Gore left. These essays are transportation machines. Did I vandalize a subway ad with a "this insults postal workers" sticker? Maybe I just borrowed the memory. It seems very shiny, like I did do it. But I didn't. Gore's stories mixed with my own memories of NYC: walking down long fire-island beaches, apartment living with neighbors everywhere, umbrellas that fail, apprehension about trips to New Jersey. I haven't been randomly selected for jury duty, but my lived experience at the DMV was more than enough to bring those scenes life.

    Beyond curating a series of resonating moments, that excitingly vibrate on pace with the city, Gore presses his vivid vignettes through each other to strain out perspective, ideas, and sundry subversions. The extrusion process is captivating. I spent time considering the class assignment in the "Elderly Widow Problem". I don't show my work toward a solution in this review. But in comparison to that work, I can report spending more time laughing out loud reading the delicious entertainments that Gore has arranged. In conclusion, I am intrigued by the deep-fried cheezy snacks recipe, and I would like to see it re-enacted somewhere on social media.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • John Patrick Higgins
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Comic Romp About Owning a Cat and Stomach Surgery - Something for Everyone
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2023
    I'd been reading Tyler C. Gore's "My Life of Crime", a series of autobiographical essays one of which, "Appendix", is novella length, and I noticed an odd effect. While scanning the perfectly ordinary looking lines of ink pressed into paper I found I was laughing. Laughing at a book. A modern book.

    This never happens. I regularly ask for recommendations of funny books from friends or random strangers but I'm always disappointed by their choices. They're not funny. At best they're mildly amusing. Ordinarily they're dry as my tongue in the morning. But I persevere because why shouldn't there be funny books? I like reading and I like laughing. There must be a way of combining the two. They still have funny films and TV and even plays.

    But actually funny books? The last book I found funny was "The Stench of Honolulu" by Jack Handey, but that came out nearly a decade ago and that's a long time between laughs. But now here's Gore's "My Life of Crime", and it delivers yuk yuks aplenty and much more, including the most spirited and moving defense of cat ownership I've ever read.

    I loved this book. There is a magnificent sweep of detail here: Gore's obsessions and irritability, his disinclination to do what he's told even in his own best interest. We get local politics, the horrors of the American healthcare system and the prophylactic bubble that protects him as he negotiates it, as Natasha is a big cheese in the Hospital. We get a feeling for the teeming, cramped city he calls home and the naked and afraid body horror of being contained in a monstrous institution in a powerless state. We get all this and we get Gore's comic voice: wry, irascible, opinionated and pedantic, but shot through with love for his wife and his cat and, occasionally, a really nice pebble.