{"product_id":"my-childhood-in-pieces-a-stand-up-comedy-a-skokie-elegy-by-edward-hirsch","title":"My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy By Edward Hirsch","description":"\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"true\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"true\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\" data-expanded=\"true\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"true\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\" data-expanded=\"true\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\" data-expanded=\"true\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"true\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-expanded=\"true\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content a-expander-content-expanded\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eFrom the award-winning poet, dark comic microbursts of prose deliver a whole childhood, at the hands of an aspiring middle-class Jewish family whose hard-boiled American values and wit were the forge of a poet's coming-of-age.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My grandparents taught me to write my sins on paper and cast them into the water. . . . They didn’t expect an entire book,” Hirsch says in the “prologue” to this glorious festival of knife-sharp observations. In microchapters—sometimes only a single scathing sentence long—with titles like “Call to Breakfast,” “Pay Cash,” “The Sorrow of Manly Sports,” and “Aristotle on Lawrence Avenue,” Eddie’s gambling father, Ruby, son of a white metal smelter, schools him and his sister in blackjack; Eddie’s mom bangs pots to wake the kids to a breakfast of cold cereal; Uncle Bob, in the collection business, is heard threatening people on the phone; and nobody suffers fools. In this household, Eddie learned to jab with his left and cross with his right, never to kid a kidder, and how to sneak out at night.\u003cbr\u003eAffectionate, deadpan, and exuberant, steeped in Yiddishkeit and Midwestern practicality, Hirsch’s laugh-and-cry performance animates a heartbreaking odyssey, from the cradle to the day he leaves home, armed with sorrow and a huge store of poetic wit.\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-header a-expander-partial-collapse-header\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Wide Genre","offers":[{"title":"Soft Cover","offer_id":47505403805916,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"AED","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hard Cover","offer_id":47505403838684,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"AED","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0809\/2044\/5148\/files\/19_98008fe4-b420-4075-b617-c2cf32cb7a97.png?v=1769702232","url":"https:\/\/widegenre.com\/products\/my-childhood-in-pieces-a-stand-up-comedy-a-skokie-elegy-by-edward-hirsch","provider":"WideGenre","version":"1.0","type":"link"}