I Know You're Out There: Private Longings, Public Humiliations, and Other Tales from the Personals

This was a random pick off the library shelf. I suppose it was the subtitle that attracted me. On that tenuous basis alone, I thought it would be more about the personals themselves than about the author. So the contents were not what I expected. But I just ploughed through it practically in one sitting, so clearly I enjoyed it. It was a nice, shortish length and flowed really easily. I definitely came to care about the narrator/memoirist a lot and was sad his own personal life became so unhappy. I certainly wish him well and hope he has since found a fulfilling, loving relationship.

I'm a sucker for essay collections and memoirs, particularly of the humorous bent. Given my steady diet of David Sedaris, Anne Fadiman, and NPR's "This I Believe" series, it shouldn't come as any surprise that I eventually stumbled upon Michael Beaumier's I Know You're Out There: Private Longings, Public Humiliations and Other Tales from the Personals. In this collection of essays, Beaumier mines his experiences as a personals editor at a Chicago newspaper for both humor and poignancy and manages to find both. Interspersed with stories of his family and his own ailing relationship, Beaumier's work is both funny and sentimental....

To read the rest of my review, go here: show more target="_top">http://apparentlynotderanged.blogspot.com/2008/07/book-review-i-know-youre-out-t... show less

A very strange memoir of a cynical misanthrope who edits personal ads for a weekly newspaper. Musings on love, compatibility, his own struggling and failing relationship, and life as part of a large dysfunctional Irish Catholic family

A very strange memoir of a cynical misanthrope who edits personal ads for a weekly newspaper. Musings on love, compatibility, his own struggling and failing relationship, and life as part of a large dysfunctional Irish Catholic family

Funny tales from writing the personals. It's a kinder, more empathic look at the world than Dan Savage's, but if you like his writing (or, um, humorous things in general) you'll undoubtedly enjoy this.

A very strange memoir of a cynical misanthrope who edits personal ads for a weekly newspaper. Musings on love, compatibility, his own struggling and failing relationship, and life as part of a large dysfunctional Irish Catholic family

A very strange memoir of a cynical misanthrope who edits personal ads for a weekly newspaper. Musings on love, compatibility, his own struggling and failing relationship, and life as part of a large dysfunctional Irish Catholic family