Am I The Asshole?: A Memoir by Dr. Brandon Day
A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir, Dr. Brandon Day takes us on his lifelong odyssey of hellish introspection and painstaking self-discovery. He chronicles his battles with homelessness, addiction, bosses, teachers, cable companies, neighbors, his children, and even his ex-wife to answer the existential question that burns inside all of us, "Am I the Asshole?
Brandon Day grew up in an abusive home. All through his childhood, his sadistic and overbearing parents tortured him by forcing him to perform all sorts of unthinkable acts such as brushing his teeth and doing his homework. By the time he was ten years old he had already become addicted to Nintendo. He would spend hours upon hours in his bedroom playing games such as Mike Tyson's Punchout and The Legend of Zelda as a means to escape the suffering he endured at the hands of his cruel and merciless parents.
Without any real skills or talent, Dr. Brandon Day knew that if he wanted to become rich and famous that he would have to tell his story. He would have to write a really self-righteous memoir where he plays the victim and complains about how hard his life is then brags about how he overcame it. That would be his only way out of the insufferable torture of not being verified on Twitter and having hardly any Instagram followers. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative. He had to prove to himself and the rest of the world that he was an "overcomer," made stronger by all the bullshit he had endured at the hands of not only his parents, but other family members, friends, co-workers, teachers, wives, ex-wives, bosses, cable companies, banks, and even his own children. However, the truth was more complicated. After he graduated from college, Dr. Brandon's mom and dad kept breaking his balls about smoking too much pot and finding a fucking job already. If only it were that easy. Eventually his parents would kick him out and even force him to pay for his own car insurance when he was just a young, scared, 26-years-old little boy.
Dr. Brandon learns to confront his own past filled with many secrets: a marijuana stash he hid in his sock drawer all through high school, phone calls from debt collectors who use strange numbers to try to trick him into picking up, dozens of lost car keys and wallets he never found, and sometimes even peeing in the kitchen sink when he is drunk. All of which led to the unbecoming desperation of a 40-year-old man forced to a reckoning with his own identity. Although Dr. Brandon would go on to graduate from college and become a high school guidance counselor, he found that sweet-ass summer vacations and a strong teacher's union didn't necessarily mean safety from judgment of his parents or the meritocracy. Both a chronicle of the American Dream and an indictment of it, this searing debut memoir exposes the price we pay for the promise of a bright future. Dr. Brandon Day's story challenges our ideas of what it means to overcome—and live life on our own terms, even if those terms mean being an asshole.
