![]() ![]() He notes that the acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, popularized in 1964 by sociologist E. Oh, reader, you are in for a treat.", "Using cash as a "behavioral-management tool" is just one Wasp peccadillo that Friend nails inCheerful Money, a suave, sharp-witted, generally intoxicating but occasionally sobering expose of his native culture. Tad Friend does fall far enough from the tree to give us a delightfully rendered account of not only his self-discovery but an examination of "The Last Days of Wasp Splendor." It is gorgeously written. ![]() In Tad's case, the sweetness flows and we the readers are richer for it.", " splendid book. Oh, reader, you are in for a treat.Cheerful Money, in a way, is Friend's own letter to his father from a son who sees his flaws as his own, his strengths issuing from his father, deepened and enriched by his own efforts. Oh, reader, you are in for a treat."- San Francisco Chronicle, " splendid book. "This seems to me at once sad, exhilarating, and inconceivable."", " splendid book. " Walker and Addie might not even think of themselves as Wasps," writes Friend, of his twins born in 2006. There is so much grace here, the angry young man that denied his destiny now a middle-aged father who sees his place on the continuum - and is conflicted. But he also is sad, sometimes angry, and in an effort to understand why his family withheld and bequeathed affection, hauls us with him over the emotional shoals. An insightful, highly humorous memoir, exceptionally well-written., " Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendoris taxonomy-as-memoir, an absolutely brilliant gift to the reader, wherein Friend essentially holds open the door to the exclusive club. This will become a classic.", The world laid bare here in Tad Friend's winning voice emerges from struggles he's waged in his heart.Cheerful Moneyis a terrific memoir about the nuances of loss, wrenching revelations from a golden boy who has chosen to face the cost of a legacy of denial., Cheerful Money, by a self-stinging Wasp, is sharp as well as blunt about this problematic caste, but also rather proud of its salty aspects. It has the verve of Nick and Nora Charles with their silver martini shakers, and some of the mournful insights of Kafka. Having had my own spell married into such a clan of American aristocrats, I found Friend's tale side-splittingly funny and touching, without being the least predictable. Tad Friend's tome on WASP-itude goes down effervescent as a glass of champagne. Friend's book is such a winning family chronicle that the decline he describes is less a fall than an exhilarating ride, less sad than heartwarmingly comic., PRAISE FOR CHEERFUL MONEY : "Every now and then, a book comes out that's so well written, so beautifully carved and psychologically true that its subject almost doesn't matter-digging a sewer to Rwanda or suburban gardening. ![]() With compassion, humility, and wit, he transforms his exotically accomplished and eccentrically intelligent Wasp relatives into a winsomely flawed American Everyfamily., With its WASPish brew of aunts, alcoholics, and dashed promise (not to mention an assortment of Inkys, Wassas, Lettys, Goggys, and Hannys),Cheerful Moneygoes down like a bitter-sweet late-summer cocktail made with a jigger of Cheever and a splash of Wodehouse., American Wasps are now as rare as black truffles, and rarely has their story been told so candidly or entertainingly as it is in Tad Friend's wonderful new memoir, Cheerful Money. Read it also for high comedy and here and there a signature Waspish sting.", Friend is a ruthlessly brilliant social taxidermist and a joyous chronicler of life's telling bric-a-brac. A brilliantly braided book: a hilarious coming-of-age memoir, a sharp stake through the zombie heart of the WASP ascendency, and the bravest work of filial love I've ever read., "Early on inCheerful Money, Tad Friend writes, "Grievances in my family are like underground coal fires: hard to detect and nearly impossible to extinguish." This fine memoir is about some of those grievances and also about the money, remorselessly leaking away, a circumstance that leads to the book's subtitle: The last days of Wasp splendor. ![]()
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