The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture

by Nathan Rabin

Book Overview

Nathan Rabin viewed pop culture as a life-affirming form of escape throughout his childhood and adolescence. As an adult, pop culture became his life. Head writer for A.V. Club for more than a decade,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416556206
• ISBN13: 9781416556206
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Nathan Rabin's remarkable and sordid tale of triumph over adversity

"Hopelessness is your friend." Words do not ring more true. Such hard-won, pessimistic wisdom as this is a bountiful element of Nathan Rabin's remarkable memoir The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture. His first book, Rabin recounts his fascinating life story that seesaws between the lows his lifelong battle with depression took him to (a brief imprisonment in a television-less mental institution at fourteen and some rather rough years spent in the college town of Madison, Wisconsin) and the exhilarating yet impermanent highs literally brought to him by pop culture (his popular work at The Onion's AV Club and the quasi-decadence of following in Ebert's footsteps as a film critic on a little-seen movie-review panel show for AMC). Rabin learned early in his adolescence that looking ahead, hoping, optimism - these were things not meant for him because they could only lead to disappointment; it's far easier to win big when anything good in life comes as a pleasant surprise. After all, his coined sign-off for Newswires on the AV Club website is advising readers to be "cautiously optimistic." But for someone whom luck seems to have avoided like the plague at times, Rabin has had the pleasure of luck ferociously attacking him as well. Despite his traumatic and unconventional upbringing he has entered adulthood a well-adjusted man, perhaps due in large part to guidance coming at the right time from the right people. Or perhaps due to his own determination to come out on the other side of the fight as the winner, for a fight is what much of his life seems to have been. Rabin's strength is evident in his writing: he's been knocked down, but never knocked out. In a perfect world, parents wouldn't have crippling illnesses or abandon their children, and group homes wouldn`t be necessary; bullies would not exist as people would never be insensitive, hurtful or vicious to others; we wouldn't fall victim to our own debilitating demons such as depression; and above all, unfortunate circumstances beyond our control would be unheard of. Instead, with his signature sharp humor and a loving embrace of pop culture, Rabin's memoir reveals how he maneuvered himself through this imperfect world using his "personal pantheon" as our guide. Each chapter's tone is set by a movie, book, song, or pop culture figure personally significant to Rabin and his story. It may seem reductionist to some to boil down his story to an assortment of pop culture artifacts - some more loosely associated to his story than others - but then you would miss his message. And indeed, who are we to judge the relevance of his association with these pop culture selections? Their import in this context are relevant to him and him alone. In many ways pop culture saved him and it seems only fitting for him to relate his story through the prism of pop culture. At 33, Rabin has a lot of life left to live. We are "cautiously optimistic" that any future sequel to his memoir will tell a much

Great Book

Enjoyed this book a lot. Nathan's sense of humor carries him (and luckily, the reader) through some very trying years.

Yes, it's hilarious...but surprisingly painful, honest, and moving, as well.

I've enjoyed Rabin's work for the A.V. Club for some time, but I don't know that I was really prepared for how talented of a writer he really is. There's no doubt that The Big Rewind features the brilliantly funny turns of phrase for which Rabin is so well known - for a taste, I highly recommend the excerpt at the AV Club, whose selection about "El Pollo Loco" has me cry with laughter every time I think about it. Rabin tells his life's story - a life which involves an absent mother, an involuntary commitment, a stay in group homes, among other events - with a candid and open sense of humor, not only about the circumstances, but about himself. But what really shocked me about The Big Rewind was how brutally honest and oddly moving it was. Whether discussing the suicide of Kurt Cobain, the draining effect of meeting his mother, or chance encounters with friends years later, watching Rabin's sarcasm and cynicism morph into true insight and painful honesty is deeply affecting, and there's no way to walk away from the book without feeling some of his pain. To be fair, I'm probably the perfect audience for the book; Rabin views the world through the prism of pop culture, from The Simpsons to Freaks, and it's a worldview I know all too well. But even if you don't, it's a fascinating, funny, wonderfully honest memoir, and the writing on display is an absolute joy. Here's hoping that this is just the start of Rabin's book-writing career; with his talent, intelligence, and wit, I hope he's not going anywhere for a long, long time.

El Pollo Loco's Revenge

What do El Pollo Loco, mental institutions, Siskel & Ebert, crazy moms in sweat pants, awesome music, long lists using commas instead of semicolons, and being Jewish have in common? Nathan Rabin's The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture. I should stop there, but I won't. I don't read a lot of autobiographies since they're usually stuffy "look at what an amazing person I turned out to be, one that you envy and now live vicariously through, since you just spent $30 to read about me" memoirs by people that I don't care about. I don't care about Nathan Rabin, either -- actually, we're basically best friends now, just like Nathan and Topher Grace -- but this book made me laugh so hard a few times that I had to wipe tears from my cheeks. The guy's had an amazingly sad and entertaining life. He writes about it in a honest and humorously self-depreciating manner that makes it easy to relate to his life and his personal failures and accomplishments, but mostly his failures. I enjoyed that he ties each chapter of his life (figuratively and literally) in with a song/album and/or a classic book or movie. Being the same age as the author, I found myself suddenly being sucked back to various parts of my youth and remembering exactly what it felt like to be alive when, for example, Nirvana was first blowing up and ending abruptly or watching MTV as NWA helped rap start to veer away from raps about gold chains and women to raps about guns, drugs, and women...and gold chains. The honesty and bluntness of Nathan Rabin's autobiography impressed me incredibly. There were times when I blushed, because at points I felt like I was reading stories from my own embarrassing encounters with women and other social situations. Some of the things he decided to include about his personal life were both touching and largely a lot more information than I needed to know about a stranger; in a very sincere way it helped to make his story one that's easy to find solace in as a recovering geek/nerd/self-conscious person. I'm not sure if that's the result he wanted or not. I honestly didn't want to put the book down, but sleep and various tasks involving the use of both my hands made that impossible. Buy it. Seriously.

A Heartwarming Tale of triumph over adversity (TM)

I didn't know anything about Nathan Rabin prior to picking up this book, and although I enjoy The Onion, I hadn't read anything that he had written there. But I love pop-culture, and I nabbed this book up based on the words "The Onion" and "Pop-culture" from the book's description. That's how easily swayed I am. Having finished this book, I can safely say that now I know oodles about Nathan Rabin. Most importantly: that Rabin is a witty, engaging and highly amusing story-teller (and that he rarely agrees with the Oscars). From the first page, this book had me hooked. Weaving a story from Rabin's turbulent youth, through the triumphant bonding with his father over Chipotle coupons and landing firmly in an Ebert and Roeper audition, (all tied up a with pop-culture touchstone bow) I couldn't put it down. This book is dark, sarcastic and incredibly, intelligently funny. It is safe to say that anyone who enjoys The Onion, grew up with Nirvana or simply likes their humor dark, whether you know Nathan Rabin or not, will love this book.