Failure is NOT an Option, by Patrick Hinds

[Ulysses]

Failure is not an Option
By Patrick Hinds
BenBella Books, Inc, 2023
Five stars

Think of this as a memoir in the form of a comedy routine. But it is not stand-up; it’s all about the language and the author’s use of the written word to provoke emotion. Now, this young man is the same age as my niece, and could technically be my own child. So it’s not a memoir of my generation, but of the next one. Is that Gen-X? His life is only half-lived, I’d hope, but so far it’s been full of, um, incident.

It is genuinely hilarious because, I guess, working with Doug Moe, Hinds has hammered his words into something adult and memoir-like, without losing the sense of madcap adventure (good and bad) that his life has been thus far. The language is salty and informal, but also genuinely witty.

But it’s not just hilarious. It’s sort of heart-breaking, too, but in a funny way. We hear Hinds’s story, and about the struggles he’s had to get where he is (happy and busy and partnered and a father). But the struggles are always wrapped in humor and good cheer, with a generous supply of self-deprecation. This is not a man who blames other people for his bad choices. He doesn’t even regret his bad choices, rather sees them as learning moments that have moved him toward where he ended up.

“Failure is not an Option” is a worthy read. Not everyone would want to or should create a memoir like this, but in this case, it works.