From tearing up the pages of "McSweeney's" and "Bookforum" to his first "self un-help" book, Kennedy presents a memoir of the spectacular failures, hilarious humiliations, and dumb choices that have dogged his 33 years. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

McSweeney's contributor Kennedy claims to have managed to miss just about every zeitgeist of his life so far: leaving Seattle for Austin to make music just as grunge was taking off and failing to make millions in the dot-com excesses at the opposite end of the same decade, to name two. Part mock Chicken Soup for the Slacker ("Maybe the only reason we don't do half of the things we try to do in life is because we just never get around to doing them") and part Sedaris-style essay collection, this episodic book presents Kennedy from his normal-but-awkward childhood to his normal-but-still-awkward adulthood. Early flights of Walter Mitty fantasy segue later in the book to a hard-won semi-maturity after he ends up broke in Manhattan after a failed grab at MTV VJ fame. His 30 years, though at a glance misspent, have taught him a lot-and won him a lot of friends. One of the book's main attractions for certain readers will be its shortcoming for others: Kennedy's spot-on generational references might seem alien to someone who didn't spend tthe '80s wearing Ocean Pacific shorts and listening to the Plimsouls and Oingo Boingo. Yet the main achievement here is that each potential success remains just that close in the mind of this book's protagonist; while Kennedy-the-character was constructed by and resembles Kennedy-the-author, the latter maintains a particular warmly bemused (or faux na ve) distance from him, the signature move of the McSweeney's generation.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The subtitle of this book may strike fear in the hearts of readers treading water in the sea of Gen-X memoirs. But rather than being the drop of water that drowns them, this self-deprecating series of essays is a life preserver (albeit one with mismatched paint and a nagging feeling that it really should have been an inner tube). What Kennedy gets, and most of his contemporaries miss, is how little he gets. Rather than sharing untested nuggets of wisdom, he laughs with us as he recounts his slouching efforts as musician wanna-be, teenage bass fisherman, record-warehouse gofer, newsletter designer, health-club attendant, forest-fire fighter, espresso-cart manager (with no employees), TV comedy writer, advertising copywriter, and, eventually, author. In fact, the only thing he is expert at is misreading signs about what to do with his life. We cringe delightedly as Kennedy records his inability to make small talk, smart decisions, or much of himself. And when he does finally deliver his insights, it's not with a self-aggrandizing shout but a welcome, modest shrug. KeirGraff. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.