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Title: Hilarious, with a bite
Review: Linwood Barclay, one of the funniest writers in Canada, has written a memoir of his youth that will have every reader saying, "Yeah, I always wondered who owned those holiday fishing camp things on Lake Wishamagog." The Barclays did.But in this memoir, Barclay has done something much more ambitious than make the reader laugh with recognition on each page. He has what the humorist Joey Slinger calls "meatloaf memories", recalling the things that weren't so funny like a father's death and a mother's insane expectation that her son will remain in a parallel version of her world.I used to think funny was the hardest writing to carry off, but funny and painful is actually worse. The Camp Wishamagogs I drive by on the highway now radiate powerful emotions at me as I pass.If you're not into anguish, there's a lot of outhouse maintenance information in here for Red Green types.A beautifully handled memoir.
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