I never know exactly how to judge autofiction. Is it more successful if it rings so true that I have to remind myself it is actually true-ish or does that make it less successful? Does the reason for choosing to write autofiction matter? When I am reading Jo Ann Beard, for instance, it always feels like the fictional elements are like a fake beauty mark or a dot of red on a black and white canvas. there to heighten the truth, to train the eye to fall where artist wants it to fall. Alexander Chee seems like he brings in fiction to add light he did not experience while in darkness. Ocean Vuong I think uses fictional elements to shape events to better tell the story of his interior life. Claire Vaye Watkins I suspect adds fictional elements to amplify her justifications for self-loathing. Of course I could be wrong about all of this, but that is what my mind does when it comes up against autofiction, it tries to explain it. Why is this not a memoir? Why is this not a novel with elements of the author's life contained therein (as is true of most great novels/authors.) Weirdly, in Be Brief and Tell Them Everything my mind did not do that at all. I think I started out reading it as memoir, got slightly jolted out of that (not sure what the trigger was) and got to wondering for a few minutes. And then, miraculously, I just did not care what was truth and what was fiction. This is just a beautiful book about life, its mundanity, ugliness, sadness, disappointments, surprises, and beauty. I guess it is really about love, of family, friends, place because, and not in spite of, their imperfections. And if those sentences worry you (as they would me) I assure you this book is not remotely sentimental or smug or preachy or self-helpy. Listi, like many of us, has faced heartbreak and wrestled with the fact that despite our best efforts life does not proceed as expected. And Listi, like most of us, feels confusion, guilt and despair over this life. He works toward gratefulness and equanimity, and he finds moments of both with the help of his family and friends. Near the end of the book he is talking to his daughter about God (like me Listi is a person who may not believe in scripture, but who has experienced many things that are inexplicable without acknowledgment of a divine.) He tells his daughter (she is 5 I believe) that God is in everything. Like every child that age she starts listing things, and like every child that age eventually she asks if God is in poop and Listi answers in the affirmative. She asks why God is in something so smelly and he says that without smelly things flowers can't grow. That moment, as much as any, is the point of this book. Find beauty in the broken (or smelly) be grateful for every drop of love that surrounds you, experience all you can of the world, take care of your people, and accept that we who actually think about anything are still sad and confused a lot of the time but that does not diminish the wonder of life. I struggle with how hallmark-y this review sounds, which is a grave disservice to the book. There is absolutely nothing trite about the book. It is absorbing and brutally honest, it made me think, it made me fall in love with this family, and it even made me see things about LA that charmed me, and I really do not like LA. A great book if you want to explore life's big questions brought down to earth. Struggled with the star rating here, and this might move to a 5 but I think a 4 for now. ( )