How Did I Get Here? Making Peace with the Road Not Taken

The title of this memoir by novelist and nonfiction writer Browner (Everything Happens Today) refers to the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime,” recognizable to anyone of his generation (he’s a late boomer/early Generation Xer). But Robert Frost’s well-known poem “The Road Not Taken” supplies the subtitle and becomes much more of a touchstone for Browner. This is an account of an intellectual grappling with midlife regret and what ifs. Browner, a self-avowed “B-list novelist” who left behind the bohemian life for a day job, marriage, and family, examines his choices and wonders whether he can set aside regret and make peace with being “a vaguely affable nonentity who has made all the right decisions for himself and his family except the one decision he needs to make—to once and for all kill off his obsolete, petrified self-image, and fully embrace the happiness that is his due.” There’s nothing glib about this self-help memoir. Full of Boethius and Rilke mixed with self-analysis, it’s a beautifully written, erudite, and thought-provoking examination of the underpinnings of a creative life. [em]Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman. (June) [/em]