A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love and Loss
April 2, 2018
Wittels Wachs’s first book sweetly but prosaically recounts the months leading up to and following her brother Harris’s 2015 death from a heroin overdose. In her recounting of her brother’s past and his rising success (he was a writer and executive producer for Parks & Recreation), she hopes to find some meaning behind his death. With each chapter, the perspective switches between first-person recounts of Harris’s life and a charming second-person address to Harris (“Visiting the cemetery isn’t a natural urge, but the day before your birthday I force myself to go... It’s also April 19, the two-month anniversary of your death”). Wittels Wachs shares anecdotes, scripts, messages, and letters of Harris’s that display his acceptance of his friends’ foibles: she quotes her brother at his funeral, saying, “‘Let’s stop finding a new witch of the week and burning them at the stake. We are all horrible and wonderful and figuring it out. ” Wittels Wachs can be a little too self-involved, as when she concludes that her brother’s death is a personal affront (“It all... feels like a punishment for some transgression in a past life”). Nevertheless, the story itself is a well-intentioned, honestly told one of love for and loss of an exceptional person.