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Congratulations, Who Are You Again?
A Good Housekeeping Book of the Month
This funny and wise new memoir from Harrison Scott Key, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, will inspire laughter and hope for anyone who’s ever been possessed by a dream of what they want to be when they grow up.
Little-known author Mark Twain once said that the two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why. He's talking about dreams here, the destiny that calls every living soul to some kind of greatness. What Mr. Twain doesn't say A dream is also a monster that wants to eat you. Nobody tells you this part of the American Dream — until now. In this new memoir, Congratulations Who Are You Again, readers join Harrison Scott Key on his outrageous journey to becoming a great American writer.
As a young boy in Mississippi, Harrison possessed many special gifts, such as the ability to read and complete college applications. And yet, throughout young adulthood, he failed at many vocations, until one day, after drinking perhaps too many beers and dusting off his King James Bible, he stumbled across a passage about a lonely pelican, which burst into flame inside him. In a mad blaze of holy illumination, Harrison realized his to set the world afire with the light inside him. He would write a funny book. This was his dream.
With unforgettable wit and tenderness, Congratulations Who Are You Again is Harrison’s instructive tale of pursuing his destiny with relentless and often misguided devotion, transforming his life beyond all He becomes a signer of autographs, a doer of interviews, a casher of checks that are "worth more money than my father had ever imagined any of us might see, this side of a drug-related felony."
On this journey, Harrison finds that as he gains the world, he stands on the precipice of losing everything that means the his family, his mind, his soul. Hilarious, honest, and absolutely practical, Congratulations Who Are You Again is a no-holds-barred look at the life of every ambitious human creature, whether you want to write books or make music, start a business or start a revolution. This is a book for the dreamers.
This funny and wise new memoir from Harrison Scott Key, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, will inspire laughter and hope for anyone who’s ever been possessed by a dream of what they want to be when they grow up.
Little-known author Mark Twain once said that the two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why. He's talking about dreams here, the destiny that calls every living soul to some kind of greatness. What Mr. Twain doesn't say A dream is also a monster that wants to eat you. Nobody tells you this part of the American Dream — until now. In this new memoir, Congratulations Who Are You Again, readers join Harrison Scott Key on his outrageous journey to becoming a great American writer.
As a young boy in Mississippi, Harrison possessed many special gifts, such as the ability to read and complete college applications. And yet, throughout young adulthood, he failed at many vocations, until one day, after drinking perhaps too many beers and dusting off his King James Bible, he stumbled across a passage about a lonely pelican, which burst into flame inside him. In a mad blaze of holy illumination, Harrison realized his to set the world afire with the light inside him. He would write a funny book. This was his dream.
With unforgettable wit and tenderness, Congratulations Who Are You Again is Harrison’s instructive tale of pursuing his destiny with relentless and often misguided devotion, transforming his life beyond all He becomes a signer of autographs, a doer of interviews, a casher of checks that are "worth more money than my father had ever imagined any of us might see, this side of a drug-related felony."
On this journey, Harrison finds that as he gains the world, he stands on the precipice of losing everything that means the his family, his mind, his soul. Hilarious, honest, and absolutely practical, Congratulations Who Are You Again is a no-holds-barred look at the life of every ambitious human creature, whether you want to write books or make music, start a business or start a revolution. This is a book for the dreamers.
357 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 6, 2018
109 people are currently reading
2259 people want to read
About the author
Harrison Scott Key
6 books623 followersHarrison Scott Key is the winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the author of three nonfiction novels: How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told (2023), Congratulations, Who Are You Again? (2018), and The World's Largest Man: A Memoir (2015).
Harrison's humor and nonfiction have appeared in The Best American Travel Writing, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Outside, The New York Times, Men's Journal, The American Conservative, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Mockingbird, Salon, Savannah Magazine, Reader's Digest, Image, Southern Living, Gulf Coast, and Creative Nonfiction, as well as a number of magazines that don't pay you anything at all, not even a little, but it was cool, because people who work at magazines are mostly poor, and helping the poor is a priority for Harrison, should he come under scrutiny.
Harrison has lectured, talked, read, performed, etc., around the world for audiences of 0 to 1,000, depending on how many of his mother's friends live in that city. He has spoken at book festivals, bookstores, conferences, variety shows, radio shows, and universities around the country, as well as retirement communities and at least one religious organization whose members were perfectly courteous up until the end. He has also performed comedy at venues around the U.S., if you include three or four different cities to be "around the U.S."
He lives in Savannah, Georgia, U.S.A.
Harrison's humor and nonfiction have appeared in The Best American Travel Writing, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Outside, The New York Times, Men's Journal, The American Conservative, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Mockingbird, Salon, Savannah Magazine, Reader's Digest, Image, Southern Living, Gulf Coast, and Creative Nonfiction, as well as a number of magazines that don't pay you anything at all, not even a little, but it was cool, because people who work at magazines are mostly poor, and helping the poor is a priority for Harrison, should he come under scrutiny.
Harrison has lectured, talked, read, performed, etc., around the world for audiences of 0 to 1,000, depending on how many of his mother's friends live in that city. He has spoken at book festivals, bookstores, conferences, variety shows, radio shows, and universities around the country, as well as retirement communities and at least one religious organization whose members were perfectly courteous up until the end. He has also performed comedy at venues around the U.S., if you include three or four different cities to be "around the U.S."
He lives in Savannah, Georgia, U.S.A.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 195 reviews
October 5, 2018
I cannot overstate the importance of the humor in our lives, reading and otherwise. Sometimes one just desperately needs to pick up a funny book. Fortunstely, Harrison Scott Key agrees with me and has written a very humorous one, a glimpse into the life of a writer who finds himself on the cusp of being a recognized author. Not afraid to poke fun at himself, his dreams, his aspirations, his quest to have it all.
As a child he loved to be the joker, loved to make people laugh, a role that often got him in trouble at school and with his parents, or others in authority.
"On Saturday nights I listened to A Prairie Home Companion in my bedroom and tried to imitate Tom Keith's sound effects, while my mother stood at the locked door and prayed for me."
Thought I was reading about my husband who often finds himself and his jokes more amusing than do I. In fact I'm giving him this book to him next to read.
But as we know life is not all humor, and in an honest manner the book also explores some lessons learned, little detours, a mine field. Ones pursuit of Fame and glory, no matter how amusing one is, always has a price, and sometimes it is more than one wants to pay.
ARC from Harper and Library thing.
As a child he loved to be the joker, loved to make people laugh, a role that often got him in trouble at school and with his parents, or others in authority.
"On Saturday nights I listened to A Prairie Home Companion in my bedroom and tried to imitate Tom Keith's sound effects, while my mother stood at the locked door and prayed for me."
Thought I was reading about my husband who often finds himself and his jokes more amusing than do I. In fact I'm giving him this book to him next to read.
But as we know life is not all humor, and in an honest manner the book also explores some lessons learned, little detours, a mine field. Ones pursuit of Fame and glory, no matter how amusing one is, always has a price, and sometimes it is more than one wants to pay.
ARC from Harper and Library thing.
January 5, 2021
School is back, which means our nation's motivational speakers are polishing their presentations to enthrall and inspire students across the land. These earnest TED Talker types — educators, athletes, activists — have touching and triumphant stories to share with young people, usually trafficking in beautiful abstractions about Hard Work and Believing In Yourself and other tropes of this tattered but durable thing we call the American Dream.
I remember many such visitors to my public high school, long ago in Mississippi. One had been a Chicago Bear, another in the U.S. Navy. I fondly remember one who seemed a little angry — a progressive choice, we thought, for an inspirational speaker. The man wore a haunted visage. He had seen some ugly business. 'Nam? Smack?
He explained why it was bad to drop out of school and how our lives would be ruined forever because we'd be poor and sad and stupid. He then pulled from his duffel bag a yellow novelty key as long as his arm, which he called "The Key to Success."
"Does anybody know what the key to success is?" he said. We leaned forward in our bleacher seats, for we did not wish to be poor and sad and stupid.
"A rich daddy!" somebody yelled out.
"You got to have skills!" said another.
"Like if you can weld!" someone clarified.
The Key to Success is Welding, no that didn't sound right. The answer, he explained, was on the back of his magical homemade wooden key. If only he would tell us! All would be known!
Finally, he turned the object around, on which he'd painted, in all-caps, "SELF-DISCIPLINE." We'd been hoping for something more like "WIZARDS" or "KARATE." Those were at least things you could get your head around. Eventually, after a few historical anecdotes about the virtue of self-discipline, we acceded, yes, this rare quality would save us from a lifetime of sad stupid non-success.
I couldn't speak for my classmates, but I didn't want a normal life. I wanted Greatness, Fame, Medals, the End of the Rainbow. Who can say why? This strange fire was inside me, that's all I knew. No man in my family had ever even finished college.
A quarter-century later, my own American Dream came true. I became an author and the first member of my family to have his name said aloud on National Public Radio, which felt amazing, and would have felt even more amazing if anyone in my family knew what that was. I won a crystal plaque that's so heavy and beautiful I'm embarrassed to display it. I have an agent. I write books. It really is amazing to me, what my life is now.
Occasionally, I get invited to high schools and colleges to inspire students, and I feel an overwhelming compulsion not to mask the truth with inspiring abstractions. The first hard truth: There is no single Key — it's more of an Unwieldy Keyring of Success, the jangling hoop your assistant principal wore like a medieval weapon. Which key does one use first? What if you don't even know what to be successful at? Medicine, or music? Business, or boxing? Do you follow the sure thing, or the passion? What if one is very passionate about sure things? How to choose?
This is America, the greatest nation in the history of the world, alongside Rome and perhaps Iceland, and in this great land, your dream can take many forms. You can do something wholesome and productive, like practice medicine in a place where they ride llamas, or build mattresses that never wear out, or you can do something evil, like make another Spider-Man movie.
I was nearly thirty before I finally eliminated all my options, which included forensic psychologist (thanks, Silence of the Lambs!), weatherman (Groundhog Day), and disc jockey (Good Morning, Vietnam). The vocation of writing was a dark horse, emerging much later, after a nervous breakdown. Nobody warned me that I might be a husband and a father before finally learning what I was supposed to do with my life.
One can be overwhelmed by all the career options, or one can embrace their dizzying innumerableness. That's why our first Key to Success is GRATITUDE AT HOW MANY CAREER OPTIONS YOU HAVE COMPARED TO YOUR PEASANT FORBEARS, by which I mean an awareness that for most of human history, your options would have been much simpler, back when you did whatever your parents did, which was usually to die of typhoid. If your mother was a subjugated washerwoman, then maybe, with hard work, you became a subjugated washerwoman-slash-leech-gatherer. Today, thanks to the Magna Carta, penicillin, and LinkedIn, there exist many kinds of subjugation to aspire to. Plagues no longer plague. Today, we are plagued with dreams. That's a blessing. You're probably good at lots.
One must also possess A GENERAL TOLERANCE FOR LOWER BACK PAIN, because whatever you finally decide to be — even if you're smart and talented, according to your mother and/or your test scores — the actual manifestation of your dream will very likely not occur until you are at an age more associated with high blood pressure than youthful ambition. Every now and again, they do give Oscars to actual human babies, but these rare instances can damage the dreamer's sense of time and justice.
How long would it take me to write a book? (I figured two years, three, tops. Stephen King said it should take about three months, which is how you know his real name is the Dark Lord Baphomet.) It took me ten years. I wrote that book. It's called The World's Largest Man. This is not that book. This is the book about that book, sort of, but not really?
Nobody tells you that there's this thing called the Great American Dream Value Menu, and you pretty much only get to pick three items:
Family (marriage, children, lawn care),
Friends (beers, chicken wings on the grill),
Health (exercise, clothes that don't make you angry),
Status (money, cars that smell good),
Avocations (volunteerism, the cello), and
The Dream (to write books, end whaling, build a car that runs on garbage)
Most of us are lucky to get three of the above, and if you're a single parent, you pretty much only get to pick two, and if you're below the poverty line, you'll likely have to work very hard for just one, which means that every dreamer needs A WILLINGNESS TO FORGO WHAT MANY AMERICANS FEEL THEY DESERVE AS A HUMAN RIGHT, because you won't have it all. Nobody does, at least not until they're very old, at which point you lose your health and all your friends die.
While you're busy neglecting friends and family in pursuit of your dream, you're going to require A CLEAR-EYED RECOGNITION OF YOUR CAPACITY FOR HURTING OTHERS. Nobody tells you that your dream will turn you into a vampire, even when it's a perfectly honorable dream. (Talk to a missionary kid.) Your ambition, noble though it be, will compel you to treat your loved ones as means or ciphers via manipulation or neglect. The capacity for evil exists in every human breast, especially in the hearts of dreamers. Guard against it at every turn.
The dreamer also desperately needs a venue for the celebration of small victories on the way to the big victory, which will never come, because dreams don't so much come true as evolve and reproduce, birthing new and more complicated fantasies. It’s hard to know when to stop and celebrate with that beer. Accordingly, one of the most overlooked Keys to Success is FRIENDS WITH A POOL. You need a way to indulge in modest healthy pleasures on the regular, because joy now is almost always better than joy later. Pools, porches, boats, beaches, riding bikes with your daughters with a stereo strapped to the handlebars, these are as essential to the American Dream as hard work. Don't forgo them.
Easily the most necessary item on our clattering keyring is READINESS TO BE WHOLLY TRANSFORMED INTO A NEW CREATURE. Ambition led me down many dark roads and into sloughs of despond. Dreaming is dangerous business. My illusions — regarding talent, money, how much the world would love me, and how good a husband and father I was — were pried from my white-knuckled hands by time and truth. The dream broke me. You can fight the breaking, or let it happen and be remade, kinder, gentler, less vampire-like.
I could go on. One also needs MENTORS, HEALTH INSURANCE, and PEOPLE WHO WON'T LIE TO YOU ABOUT HOW BAD YOU ARE AT THE THING YOU WANT TO BE GOOD AT, but how can one say all this to anxious and eager young students? It might make them sad and stifle their dreaming.
When I climb the stage and take in the exquisite hunger of all those faces, I think of the angry man with the yellow key — angry, I think, because he knew how impossible it was to illumine the multifarious unknowability of the American Dream to any child. The dream is a beautiful beast, magical and miraculous, with many faces and eyes and tentacles, and I am grateful that it has generated reasonable financial security for my family and provided me something useful and beautiful to do in my short time on this planet.
With hard work and even harder lessons and the enduring love of people who kept me from going full-vampire, I've found a way to tame the dream-monster and live a relatively normal and happy life, which is exactly the thing I always thought I didn't want. Funny how that happens. So this book, Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, is about all that. If you liked this review, you probably won't hate the book, but you still might. I hope you don't. I love you guys!
I remember many such visitors to my public high school, long ago in Mississippi. One had been a Chicago Bear, another in the U.S. Navy. I fondly remember one who seemed a little angry — a progressive choice, we thought, for an inspirational speaker. The man wore a haunted visage. He had seen some ugly business. 'Nam? Smack?
He explained why it was bad to drop out of school and how our lives would be ruined forever because we'd be poor and sad and stupid. He then pulled from his duffel bag a yellow novelty key as long as his arm, which he called "The Key to Success."
"Does anybody know what the key to success is?" he said. We leaned forward in our bleacher seats, for we did not wish to be poor and sad and stupid.
"A rich daddy!" somebody yelled out.
"You got to have skills!" said another.
"Like if you can weld!" someone clarified.
The Key to Success is Welding, no that didn't sound right. The answer, he explained, was on the back of his magical homemade wooden key. If only he would tell us! All would be known!
Finally, he turned the object around, on which he'd painted, in all-caps, "SELF-DISCIPLINE." We'd been hoping for something more like "WIZARDS" or "KARATE." Those were at least things you could get your head around. Eventually, after a few historical anecdotes about the virtue of self-discipline, we acceded, yes, this rare quality would save us from a lifetime of sad stupid non-success.
I couldn't speak for my classmates, but I didn't want a normal life. I wanted Greatness, Fame, Medals, the End of the Rainbow. Who can say why? This strange fire was inside me, that's all I knew. No man in my family had ever even finished college.
A quarter-century later, my own American Dream came true. I became an author and the first member of my family to have his name said aloud on National Public Radio, which felt amazing, and would have felt even more amazing if anyone in my family knew what that was. I won a crystal plaque that's so heavy and beautiful I'm embarrassed to display it. I have an agent. I write books. It really is amazing to me, what my life is now.
Occasionally, I get invited to high schools and colleges to inspire students, and I feel an overwhelming compulsion not to mask the truth with inspiring abstractions. The first hard truth: There is no single Key — it's more of an Unwieldy Keyring of Success, the jangling hoop your assistant principal wore like a medieval weapon. Which key does one use first? What if you don't even know what to be successful at? Medicine, or music? Business, or boxing? Do you follow the sure thing, or the passion? What if one is very passionate about sure things? How to choose?
This is America, the greatest nation in the history of the world, alongside Rome and perhaps Iceland, and in this great land, your dream can take many forms. You can do something wholesome and productive, like practice medicine in a place where they ride llamas, or build mattresses that never wear out, or you can do something evil, like make another Spider-Man movie.
I was nearly thirty before I finally eliminated all my options, which included forensic psychologist (thanks, Silence of the Lambs!), weatherman (Groundhog Day), and disc jockey (Good Morning, Vietnam). The vocation of writing was a dark horse, emerging much later, after a nervous breakdown. Nobody warned me that I might be a husband and a father before finally learning what I was supposed to do with my life.
One can be overwhelmed by all the career options, or one can embrace their dizzying innumerableness. That's why our first Key to Success is GRATITUDE AT HOW MANY CAREER OPTIONS YOU HAVE COMPARED TO YOUR PEASANT FORBEARS, by which I mean an awareness that for most of human history, your options would have been much simpler, back when you did whatever your parents did, which was usually to die of typhoid. If your mother was a subjugated washerwoman, then maybe, with hard work, you became a subjugated washerwoman-slash-leech-gatherer. Today, thanks to the Magna Carta, penicillin, and LinkedIn, there exist many kinds of subjugation to aspire to. Plagues no longer plague. Today, we are plagued with dreams. That's a blessing. You're probably good at lots.
One must also possess A GENERAL TOLERANCE FOR LOWER BACK PAIN, because whatever you finally decide to be — even if you're smart and talented, according to your mother and/or your test scores — the actual manifestation of your dream will very likely not occur until you are at an age more associated with high blood pressure than youthful ambition. Every now and again, they do give Oscars to actual human babies, but these rare instances can damage the dreamer's sense of time and justice.
How long would it take me to write a book? (I figured two years, three, tops. Stephen King said it should take about three months, which is how you know his real name is the Dark Lord Baphomet.) It took me ten years. I wrote that book. It's called The World's Largest Man. This is not that book. This is the book about that book, sort of, but not really?
Nobody tells you that there's this thing called the Great American Dream Value Menu, and you pretty much only get to pick three items:
Family (marriage, children, lawn care),
Friends (beers, chicken wings on the grill),
Health (exercise, clothes that don't make you angry),
Status (money, cars that smell good),
Avocations (volunteerism, the cello), and
The Dream (to write books, end whaling, build a car that runs on garbage)
Most of us are lucky to get three of the above, and if you're a single parent, you pretty much only get to pick two, and if you're below the poverty line, you'll likely have to work very hard for just one, which means that every dreamer needs A WILLINGNESS TO FORGO WHAT MANY AMERICANS FEEL THEY DESERVE AS A HUMAN RIGHT, because you won't have it all. Nobody does, at least not until they're very old, at which point you lose your health and all your friends die.
While you're busy neglecting friends and family in pursuit of your dream, you're going to require A CLEAR-EYED RECOGNITION OF YOUR CAPACITY FOR HURTING OTHERS. Nobody tells you that your dream will turn you into a vampire, even when it's a perfectly honorable dream. (Talk to a missionary kid.) Your ambition, noble though it be, will compel you to treat your loved ones as means or ciphers via manipulation or neglect. The capacity for evil exists in every human breast, especially in the hearts of dreamers. Guard against it at every turn.
The dreamer also desperately needs a venue for the celebration of small victories on the way to the big victory, which will never come, because dreams don't so much come true as evolve and reproduce, birthing new and more complicated fantasies. It’s hard to know when to stop and celebrate with that beer. Accordingly, one of the most overlooked Keys to Success is FRIENDS WITH A POOL. You need a way to indulge in modest healthy pleasures on the regular, because joy now is almost always better than joy later. Pools, porches, boats, beaches, riding bikes with your daughters with a stereo strapped to the handlebars, these are as essential to the American Dream as hard work. Don't forgo them.
Easily the most necessary item on our clattering keyring is READINESS TO BE WHOLLY TRANSFORMED INTO A NEW CREATURE. Ambition led me down many dark roads and into sloughs of despond. Dreaming is dangerous business. My illusions — regarding talent, money, how much the world would love me, and how good a husband and father I was — were pried from my white-knuckled hands by time and truth. The dream broke me. You can fight the breaking, or let it happen and be remade, kinder, gentler, less vampire-like.
I could go on. One also needs MENTORS, HEALTH INSURANCE, and PEOPLE WHO WON'T LIE TO YOU ABOUT HOW BAD YOU ARE AT THE THING YOU WANT TO BE GOOD AT, but how can one say all this to anxious and eager young students? It might make them sad and stifle their dreaming.
When I climb the stage and take in the exquisite hunger of all those faces, I think of the angry man with the yellow key — angry, I think, because he knew how impossible it was to illumine the multifarious unknowability of the American Dream to any child. The dream is a beautiful beast, magical and miraculous, with many faces and eyes and tentacles, and I am grateful that it has generated reasonable financial security for my family and provided me something useful and beautiful to do in my short time on this planet.
With hard work and even harder lessons and the enduring love of people who kept me from going full-vampire, I've found a way to tame the dream-monster and live a relatively normal and happy life, which is exactly the thing I always thought I didn't want. Funny how that happens. So this book, Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, is about all that. If you liked this review, you probably won't hate the book, but you still might. I hope you don't. I love you guys!
May 21, 2020
I am the third of three first time author friends to read this book the week our first books came out in 2020. “Wait to read it then,” one said. “You will need it then,” the other chimed.
They were right.
This book spoke into the silence of the long, unglamorous road that is publishing your first book. It named the light that beckons me to birth something beautiful, the calling I can’t resist. It voiced the vulnerability of making, trusting it might matter to someone, and finding no amount of success will satiate. While Key’s story isn’t the *same* as mine (hello, Christian non-fiction books like This Too Shall Last don’t exactly earn 300k advances, and I did die inside for approximately 20 minutes after reading that particular part...), his words articulated a part of my story so few understand. I felt seen, from checking my Amazon ranking like I’m ardently waiting for the second coming of Christ, to the way I often had to apply gorilla glue to my ass to stay in my writing chair to get a pitiful 500 words written in a day to somehow meet 60k by my deadline. Here we are—writers, dark and full of desire, compelled to create by a light we sometimes cannot see...Except Key’s words punctuate that darkness and desire with the light of laughter. And after releasing my first book into the wild, I needed to cry-laugh my way back to the steady light that started this marathon in the first place.
This book is not *just* for other authors. It’s for everyone with a dream. But, damn, this first time author is glad she could read this the week her dream baby monster started seeing the scary light of day.
They were right.
This book spoke into the silence of the long, unglamorous road that is publishing your first book. It named the light that beckons me to birth something beautiful, the calling I can’t resist. It voiced the vulnerability of making, trusting it might matter to someone, and finding no amount of success will satiate. While Key’s story isn’t the *same* as mine (hello, Christian non-fiction books like This Too Shall Last don’t exactly earn 300k advances, and I did die inside for approximately 20 minutes after reading that particular part...), his words articulated a part of my story so few understand. I felt seen, from checking my Amazon ranking like I’m ardently waiting for the second coming of Christ, to the way I often had to apply gorilla glue to my ass to stay in my writing chair to get a pitiful 500 words written in a day to somehow meet 60k by my deadline. Here we are—writers, dark and full of desire, compelled to create by a light we sometimes cannot see...Except Key’s words punctuate that darkness and desire with the light of laughter. And after releasing my first book into the wild, I needed to cry-laugh my way back to the steady light that started this marathon in the first place.
This book is not *just* for other authors. It’s for everyone with a dream. But, damn, this first time author is glad she could read this the week her dream baby monster started seeing the scary light of day.
December 24, 2023
Hilariously real. No more HSK books for me to read so it was obviously time for me to look up every podcast and interview. I also subscribed to his newsletter. And friended him on Facebook. And looked up his next speaking events.
Am I weird?
Am I weird?
January 18, 2020
This might be interesting if you’re a young wannabe writer. Or if you’ve read his earlier book and wondered about how he came to write it. I’m neither so I simply found the book uninteresting.
December 4, 2023
I never knew I was capable of weeping and snort laughing simultaneously.
April 3, 2024
This book is amazing. I’m also really glad I read this after reading both The Worlds Largest Man and How to Stay Married because knowing the before and after of this book gave it a lot more weight. I loved getting to read his story of what it was like to “accomplish” his dream and to be “famous”. I think this book really resonated with me because I definitely have dreams and have a desire to be known and have been really wrestling with that in my heart over the past year. It was amazing to hear how his dream affected his family and how what he thought he wanted wasn’t really what he wanted all along. This one was still really funny but not as much as the other two but I really loved the story and it was full of themes from Ecclesiastes which made me love it even more. Harrison Scott Key was already my favorite author before I read this and I love him even more now.
One quote that really stuck out to me:
“Do what you love for a living and you’ll work every day of your life, and you’ll never stop working, even when you should.”
Such a good quote for me to be thinking about as it can be so easy to over work in ministry and neglect the people right in front of me.
One quote that really stuck out to me:
“Do what you love for a living and you’ll work every day of your life, and you’ll never stop working, even when you should.”
Such a good quote for me to be thinking about as it can be so easy to over work in ministry and neglect the people right in front of me.
January 26, 2021
Nobody tells you that someday someone will recommend this book to you and you'll read it to see what all the fuss is about and you'll be hooked by the first page and you'll laugh and you'll cry and your brain will melt with the wonder of it all and it might just change your life forever.
Nobody tells you this.
But it happens.
Nobody tells you this.
But it happens.
December 14, 2019
Harrison Scott Key wants to spare you none of the gory details of writing a book. Consider him a sarcastic tour guide who takes you behind the scenes of Walt Disney World, showing you the plumbing and wires it takes to make the magic appear, who makes you consider the sheer quantity of trash someone has to take out. As he talks about writing his first book (wildly funny, moderately successful), he lays out the cost, in almost excruciating detail, to both himself and his family. He doesn't shy away from sharing his own ambitions and insecurities, at every step of the process from writing all the way through his book tour. Most importantly, he's just plain funny.
I've actually wished someone would write a book about being an unsuccessful writer, or a memoir about quitting on their dream of writing a book and being really happy that they quit. Congratulations, Who Are You Again? basically satisfies that longing: it makes me feel better for questioning whether I really want to write a book. It lets me off the hook. Watch his TED talk if you want to get a taste of how funny he is about ambition and disappointment pursuing the American Dream.
Most of the books I read about writing (and I've read a fair number) have an encouraging air about them. "Write what you feel called to write" is the drumbeat undergirding every one of them, the climax to which each book crescendos. These books all guide you, more or less, through the glossy theme park of their own success. Call me crazy, but I prefer the behind-the-scenes tour any day.
I've actually wished someone would write a book about being an unsuccessful writer, or a memoir about quitting on their dream of writing a book and being really happy that they quit. Congratulations, Who Are You Again? basically satisfies that longing: it makes me feel better for questioning whether I really want to write a book. It lets me off the hook. Watch his TED talk if you want to get a taste of how funny he is about ambition and disappointment pursuing the American Dream.
Most of the books I read about writing (and I've read a fair number) have an encouraging air about them. "Write what you feel called to write" is the drumbeat undergirding every one of them, the climax to which each book crescendos. These books all guide you, more or less, through the glossy theme park of their own success. Call me crazy, but I prefer the behind-the-scenes tour any day.
January 4, 2021
Incredibly intelligent, and the funniest book I've ever read. Can't form words about how good it is.
December 5, 2018
Harrison Scott Key, Congratulations, Who Are You Again? A Memoir (New York: Harpers, 2018) , 347 pages including five appendices and no illustrations except an ink figure of a dog drawn by Beetle, the author’s daughter, while I waited for him to sign my book.
Over the years I have enjoyed reading memoirs by authors as I learn how they approach the craft and gleam advice for myself. Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, Eudora Welty,’s One’s Writer’s Beginning, Robert Laxalt’s, Travels with My Royal: A Memoir of the Writing Life, and Dee Brown’s When the Century was Young are books that come to mind. I’ve also read many “how-to” books by authors who tell us how to approach the craft. Without looking at my shelf, I can recall Stephen King, On Writing; William Zinsser, On Writing Well; Ray Bradbury, Zen and the Art of Writing; and John McPhee, Draft #4. All these authors of memoirs and how-to books have an impressive list of publications under their belt when they sat down to give advice on writing. Harrison Scott Key decided he’d write his how-to memoir immediately following the publication of his first book. But then, his first book won the Thurber Prize. The real question is “why, after having read so many books on the topic, I haven’t published a best seller?” I’m not going to answer that and will stick to critiquing Mr. Key’s book.
I enjoyed Congratulations, Who Are You Again? even though I am not sure I would have called this a memoir. I’m not sure what it is. Part of the book reads like a “how-to” manual for becoming famous and having a best seller. Part of the book is the author’s quest to discover his life’s purpose as he charges through much of his 20s and 30s like Don Quixote. Part of this books appears to be a sure-fire way to receive a summons to divorce court. Another part of this book is Mr. Key’s depository for lists. And just in case you didn’t have your fill of lists within the text, Key fills his appendices with lists. What is it about all these lists? I was wondering why he didn’t include a grocery list, but concluded that maybe his wife, out of gratitude for now having more than one toilet in the house, has volunteered to shop for the family. But my hunch is that Mr Key’s lists are actually passwords. What a better way to keep them close at hand than to have a book he can pull off his shelf and quickly recall his password for Facebook or Twitter or maybe even First Chatham Bank.
And, one final “what is it…” What is it about depressed people and pelicans? Key speaks of his interest in these “freakish and ungainly” birds while depressed. Personally, I find pelicans graceful. A former professor of mine, Donald McCullough, while dealing with depression, actually published a book titled The Wisdom of Pelicans. Like my former professor, I find pelicans graceful, not freakish. I’m not sure what’s wrong with Mr. Key. If pelicans are so depressing, maybe I should give up watching the birds fish. But that sounds too depressing.
That said, this is a funny book. And writing a funny book is one of Mr. Key’s life goals. He’s now achieved this goal twice, first with The World’s Largest Man, and now with Congratulations. Although Key acknowledges his indebtedness to a host of authors, he never mentioned the fabulous 1940 movie, “Sullivan’s Travels,” staring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. In “Sullivan’s Travels,” McCrea plays a movie producer who wants to make a movie about the seriousness of the Great Depression in order to move people to respond in compassion. But after a misfortune, he has an epiphany and realizes people also need to laugh. Sullivan learns this wisdom after at the end of the film. Key comes this conclusion on page 49.
My third complaint about Key’s writing (In case you weren’t keeping count: #1 complaint: Lists. #2 complaint: Rude remarks about pelicans) is his overuse of misdirects. Key will begin describing the great things that follow his things such as being published. Following such good news, Key rambles on about all the invitations to TV and radio shows to make an appearance. He seems to have a healthy crush on NPR’s Terry Gross. Others ask him to give keynote speeches. He’s also mugged by admirers on Savannah’s streets. Just when the reader is about to believe that there is a god who rewards hard work, the reader is redirected into what really happened. Usually nothing. The exception is an actual mugging on Savannah’s streets. Actually, Key never wrote about being mugged, but it could happen. These redirects were funny the first 57 times this reader fell for this comic technique, but the 58th time was just too much. As I was coming to the end of the book, I thought that if there was one more redirect, I’d rip the book apart and toss it out the window. Thankfully, being near the end, I was reading lists and it’s pretty hard to redirect a reader from one list to another. Who knew lists could be funny?
Complaints aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and laughed a lot. My biggest take-away from Mr. Key is that writing is like giving birth. I’ve heard that before, but Key attaches his unique twist that refreshes this platitude: “Writing is like giving birth, and it is, it is just like giving birth, in the Middle Ages, when all the babies died.” (114). Writing is hard work, and such hard work in this case produces a book that the reader can easily read and enjoy.
And one final comment for clarification. I am not the minister who accosted Keys in a restaurant asking to be included in his next book. Such a request is foolish for if Keys says the things he does about his wife and children, whom he obviously adores, what would he say about a coveting minister. Of course, the minister did find himself in the book, only he’s not identified. What fun is that?
Over the years I have enjoyed reading memoirs by authors as I learn how they approach the craft and gleam advice for myself. Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, Eudora Welty,’s One’s Writer’s Beginning, Robert Laxalt’s, Travels with My Royal: A Memoir of the Writing Life, and Dee Brown’s When the Century was Young are books that come to mind. I’ve also read many “how-to” books by authors who tell us how to approach the craft. Without looking at my shelf, I can recall Stephen King, On Writing; William Zinsser, On Writing Well; Ray Bradbury, Zen and the Art of Writing; and John McPhee, Draft #4. All these authors of memoirs and how-to books have an impressive list of publications under their belt when they sat down to give advice on writing. Harrison Scott Key decided he’d write his how-to memoir immediately following the publication of his first book. But then, his first book won the Thurber Prize. The real question is “why, after having read so many books on the topic, I haven’t published a best seller?” I’m not going to answer that and will stick to critiquing Mr. Key’s book.
I enjoyed Congratulations, Who Are You Again? even though I am not sure I would have called this a memoir. I’m not sure what it is. Part of the book reads like a “how-to” manual for becoming famous and having a best seller. Part of the book is the author’s quest to discover his life’s purpose as he charges through much of his 20s and 30s like Don Quixote. Part of this books appears to be a sure-fire way to receive a summons to divorce court. Another part of this book is Mr. Key’s depository for lists. And just in case you didn’t have your fill of lists within the text, Key fills his appendices with lists. What is it about all these lists? I was wondering why he didn’t include a grocery list, but concluded that maybe his wife, out of gratitude for now having more than one toilet in the house, has volunteered to shop for the family. But my hunch is that Mr Key’s lists are actually passwords. What a better way to keep them close at hand than to have a book he can pull off his shelf and quickly recall his password for Facebook or Twitter or maybe even First Chatham Bank.
And, one final “what is it…” What is it about depressed people and pelicans? Key speaks of his interest in these “freakish and ungainly” birds while depressed. Personally, I find pelicans graceful. A former professor of mine, Donald McCullough, while dealing with depression, actually published a book titled The Wisdom of Pelicans. Like my former professor, I find pelicans graceful, not freakish. I’m not sure what’s wrong with Mr. Key. If pelicans are so depressing, maybe I should give up watching the birds fish. But that sounds too depressing.
That said, this is a funny book. And writing a funny book is one of Mr. Key’s life goals. He’s now achieved this goal twice, first with The World’s Largest Man, and now with Congratulations. Although Key acknowledges his indebtedness to a host of authors, he never mentioned the fabulous 1940 movie, “Sullivan’s Travels,” staring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. In “Sullivan’s Travels,” McCrea plays a movie producer who wants to make a movie about the seriousness of the Great Depression in order to move people to respond in compassion. But after a misfortune, he has an epiphany and realizes people also need to laugh. Sullivan learns this wisdom after at the end of the film. Key comes this conclusion on page 49.
My third complaint about Key’s writing (In case you weren’t keeping count: #1 complaint: Lists. #2 complaint: Rude remarks about pelicans) is his overuse of misdirects. Key will begin describing the great things that follow his things such as being published. Following such good news, Key rambles on about all the invitations to TV and radio shows to make an appearance. He seems to have a healthy crush on NPR’s Terry Gross. Others ask him to give keynote speeches. He’s also mugged by admirers on Savannah’s streets. Just when the reader is about to believe that there is a god who rewards hard work, the reader is redirected into what really happened. Usually nothing. The exception is an actual mugging on Savannah’s streets. Actually, Key never wrote about being mugged, but it could happen. These redirects were funny the first 57 times this reader fell for this comic technique, but the 58th time was just too much. As I was coming to the end of the book, I thought that if there was one more redirect, I’d rip the book apart and toss it out the window. Thankfully, being near the end, I was reading lists and it’s pretty hard to redirect a reader from one list to another. Who knew lists could be funny?
Complaints aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and laughed a lot. My biggest take-away from Mr. Key is that writing is like giving birth. I’ve heard that before, but Key attaches his unique twist that refreshes this platitude: “Writing is like giving birth, and it is, it is just like giving birth, in the Middle Ages, when all the babies died.” (114). Writing is hard work, and such hard work in this case produces a book that the reader can easily read and enjoy.
And one final comment for clarification. I am not the minister who accosted Keys in a restaurant asking to be included in his next book. Such a request is foolish for if Keys says the things he does about his wife and children, whom he obviously adores, what would he say about a coveting minister. Of course, the minister did find himself in the book, only he’s not identified. What fun is that?
February 13, 2021
4.5/5
inspiring, witty, clever; there are many words i could use to describe this book. i think one of the biggest things i appreciated about it was the raw honesty in which it was told.
oh and it’s absolutely hilarious.
inspiring, witty, clever; there are many words i could use to describe this book. i think one of the biggest things i appreciated about it was the raw honesty in which it was told.
oh and it’s absolutely hilarious.
June 20, 2025
Please ignore me, family, as piddle around doing chores and laughing at my audiobook.
November 29, 2018
I enjoyed this memoir about writing a memoir (which I also enjoyed) very much. It was funny, sweet, and honest. The latter chapters, where he writes so tenderly about his family, are beautiful and heartwarming.
July 2, 2018
Brilliant and funny and wickedly smart.
November 27, 2018
Funny and honest.
September 7, 2023
Absolute torture. The author thinks every thought and conversation he’s ever had is the most interesting anecdote.
December 27, 2020
I believe I've found a new favorite memoir, someone high-five me.
a quote from the book:
"You are playing a game of chicken with your own doubts about your talent, and you cannot flinch, for if you keep doing it over, pressing down against the carbon-based matter of your brain, for days, weeks, months, years, one day you will open your skull and pull out a clown metaphor that will make whole rooms weep in recognition of their common humanity."
...
gosh, I didn't expect to absolutely demolish this in a day and a half, but I did. I'll be adding Harrison Scott Key to my mental list of favorite authors, contemplate writing a memoir at the tender age of fourteen, and be quoting this book eternally for the rest of my life, maybe?
It's so, so well written, horribly funny, devilishly smart, writerly, sweet, cute, adult, and everything in-between. cANNOT recommend enough. (good bit of content though, keep that in mind) If I could shake this book's hand and give it a hug, I would. Bravo, Harrison Scott Key, Bravo.
a quote from the book:
"You are playing a game of chicken with your own doubts about your talent, and you cannot flinch, for if you keep doing it over, pressing down against the carbon-based matter of your brain, for days, weeks, months, years, one day you will open your skull and pull out a clown metaphor that will make whole rooms weep in recognition of their common humanity."
...
gosh, I didn't expect to absolutely demolish this in a day and a half, but I did. I'll be adding Harrison Scott Key to my mental list of favorite authors, contemplate writing a memoir at the tender age of fourteen, and be quoting this book eternally for the rest of my life, maybe?
It's so, so well written, horribly funny, devilishly smart, writerly, sweet, cute, adult, and everything in-between. cANNOT recommend enough. (good bit of content though, keep that in mind) If I could shake this book's hand and give it a hug, I would. Bravo, Harrison Scott Key, Bravo.
Read
August 31, 2023This is a fun read for exploring dreams and learning more about the process of publishing. I related with the Mississippi humor.
Some of the ways he talked about his wife and the often references to prayer were a little annoying, but it also took me back home to MS, so it seemed fitting.
Some of the ways he talked about his wife and the often references to prayer were a little annoying, but it also took me back home to MS, so it seemed fitting.
November 15, 2023
4.5. There is a musicality to Key’s prose, and I relish his sentences. I especially loved the first half of the book, but the whole thing is suffused with comedic profundity.
January 26, 2024
Loved. My second fav of his. Impatiently waiting for him to write more
June 23, 2025
Still funny. It’s weird reading these out of order, knowing what happens later in his life. I’d rank this book 3rd of the 3, but it’s definitely worth the read if you like the other two.
February 6, 2020
I didn't mean to devour this book within 24 hours, but I really couldn't stop. Key left me with so many thoughts about life purpose, greatness, and our duty to others. Though I'm not one to be consumed by a monstrous baby-dream (at least, yet), I was fascinated until the last page.
Many thanks to Dustin, who tolerated me hogging the book and spoiling all the funniest parts for him.
Many thanks to Dustin, who tolerated me hogging the book and spoiling all the funniest parts for him.
September 4, 2023
Unfortunately I did not read this author's books in order. I started with his most recent one (How to Stay Married) and it was fantastic, so my expectations of this book were equally high. However, I immediately began to see why his wife had a lengthy affair! Writing comedy should not be as hard as he made it. You either have it or you don't and if it takes you that long and that much effort to make it happen (to the detriment of your family) maybe you should change your "dream." Also, what is his obsession with the word "panties?" Ick.
So, you may be wondering why I gave this book 3 stars. Well, the author still manages to engage the reader (even while sometimes digusting and repulsing you at the same time) and can be funny at times. And now I want to read his first book (which is mentioned all throughout this one) so that deserves some credit.
So, you may be wondering why I gave this book 3 stars. Well, the author still manages to engage the reader (even while sometimes digusting and repulsing you at the same time) and can be funny at times. And now I want to read his first book (which is mentioned all throughout this one) so that deserves some credit.
July 31, 2023
Read this after reading his first a while ago and his third earlier this summer. His first is a memoir of his father, this is about work (specifically, chasing you dreams) and the third is about marriage. Cannot believe how insightful he is in all three of those. They will all make you laugh, cry, and laugh while crying (my favorite emotion).
With this one, it made me think about my children and their dreams. And for that, it was will be revisited for me again one day.
Hoping Harrison Scott Key continues to write books on how broken, beautiful, terrible, and hilarious life is!
With this one, it made me think about my children and their dreams. And for that, it was will be revisited for me again one day.
Hoping Harrison Scott Key continues to write books on how broken, beautiful, terrible, and hilarious life is!
May 28, 2024
Oh my.
This book is really two books. One is Harrison's Experience in the Publishing Industry, and as an author myself, it was interesting and worth discussing (and vastly different from mine in a number of ways, most notably the amount of our advance).
But since I've read How to Stay Married, this feels mostly, and painfully, like watching his marriage crash and burn. That's pretty rough.
This book is really two books. One is Harrison's Experience in the Publishing Industry, and as an author myself, it was interesting and worth discussing (and vastly different from mine in a number of ways, most notably the amount of our advance).
But since I've read How to Stay Married, this feels mostly, and painfully, like watching his marriage crash and burn. That's pretty rough.
April 14, 2019
With all due respect, I don’t know why this book was published nor why I read it. Was an excruciating waste of time. Was complete nonsense. Sorry. Wasn’t for me.
July 19, 2020
His first book was my favorite, but the man is funny.
November 18, 2024
My favorite part is towards the end when he takes his young daughters on book tour and sees the world through their eyes. It's perfect.
"So much of daily life comprises mostly of harmless posturing. We must pretend to be more amazing than we are, in job interviews, on first dates, because you can't go through life shaking the rancid meat of your soul at every human you encounter, it'd be miserable, so we spend much of our day lying. We even lie about how much we lie. Art undoes all that. Art is an exercise in not lying, for once." (p. 130)
"It came as a sudden happy surprise, this realization that seeing my children experience raw wonder was far more exhilarating than any dream, that the roar of an audience's laughter was a thrill that muted into the background of my daughters' awe at a continental breakfast. Their joy became my own. I had become as a child again....
what I learned is probably so obvious as to be upsetting, that this thing I had been searching for all my life was right in front of me, licking the pillows." (p. 313)
"So much of daily life comprises mostly of harmless posturing. We must pretend to be more amazing than we are, in job interviews, on first dates, because you can't go through life shaking the rancid meat of your soul at every human you encounter, it'd be miserable, so we spend much of our day lying. We even lie about how much we lie. Art undoes all that. Art is an exercise in not lying, for once." (p. 130)
"It came as a sudden happy surprise, this realization that seeing my children experience raw wonder was far more exhilarating than any dream, that the roar of an audience's laughter was a thrill that muted into the background of my daughters' awe at a continental breakfast. Their joy became my own. I had become as a child again....
what I learned is probably so obvious as to be upsetting, that this thing I had been searching for all my life was right in front of me, licking the pillows." (p. 313)
December 26, 2025
I discovered Harrison Scott Key just this year and he instantly became one of my favorite authors. He tackles deep topics with not just a lot of great humor, but with sincerity and refreshing frankness. He is not for everyone. He does cuss, his humor can be crass, and he covers mature topics in his books. I strongly do not recommend his books to anyone under 18. This book was so interesting in showing just how much blood, sweat tears and sacrifice go into writing and publishing a book. I have so much more respect for authors after reading this!
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