Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass

Pulitzer-winning humorist Barry (Swamp Story) looks back at his childhood hijinks, journalistic exploits, and notable columns in this revealing if bumpy memoir. Aiming to account for what led him to “fame and fortune,” he starts with his Presbyterian minister father and darkly comic mother. Amusing anecdotes about his parents (“Don’t drown, kids!” his mother shouted “in the cheerful voice of a fifties TV-commercial housewife” as her children went for a swim) give context to Barry’s natural comedic impulse and bring a levity that counterbalances otherwise harrowing recollections of his father’s alcoholism and his mother’s suicide. Barry also offers a riotous chronicle of his rise in journalism, from chasing two-bit local stories about “an unusually large zucchini” to writing an anything-goes weekly humor column at the Miami Herald. Recalling how he gave “bat urine” as a tasting note at a Waldorf Astoria sommelier contest and paid $8,000 to rent a helicopter for the perfect shot of the 1987 Long Island garbage barge, Barry captures a fantastically uninhibited “Golden Age of Journalism Expense Accounts.” Selections from Barry’s columns sometimes serve to bolster his recollections—like his final devastating meeting with his mother—but more often bog the narrative down, particularly a punishing chapter dedicated to his coverage of every presidential election from 1984 to 2020. It makes for an uneven mix of heartfelt reflection and greatest hits compilation. (May)