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Help Yourself Help Yourself
"Finally, a book of etiquette for the dishonest and self-medicated. Patrick deWitt is frank, unflinching, and very, very funny as he takes twelve steps towards the abyss." --Hunter Kennedy, The Minus Times
"...A reading experience as shivery and enlivening as I've had in a long time." --Dennis Cooper
"...A reading experience as shivery and enlivening as I've had in a long time." --Dennis Cooper
52 pages, Trade Paper
First published January 1, 1974
2 people are currently reading
819 people want to read
About the author
Patrick deWitt
19 books2,594 followersPatrick deWitt is the author of the novels French Exit (a national bestseller), The Sisters Brothers (a New York Times bestseller short-listed for the Booker Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 13, 2007
Funny story: deWitt sent this book to me to see if we'd carry it at Powell's. I read it. He writes with an odd, funny, likable, and unique voice and I was immediately won over. I emailed with him. He lives on Bainbridge Island, which is near Seattle. He said his family wanted to move to Portland. He also said he had an agent who had just sent out his first novel to editors in NY. This was about two weeks ago. Today I saw somewhere that he got a book deal with Harcourt for that novel. For a better than average amount of money too! Way to go, Patrick! Now he says that he'll probably move to Portland sooner. Can't wait to see that book (in 2009 or whenever they get around to it). But it was just another example of someone doing their own small press thing and getting noticed by the big boys.
This little book may be hard to find but you can get it on this web site or at Powell's.
This little book may be hard to find but you can get it on this web site or at Powell's.
December 13, 2012
Being a big fan of Patrick DeWitt, I decided to try and find this one, an early, small press book.
It was somewhat of an ordeal.
Amazon, Worldcat, all the usual sources were completely empty.
So where does one head from there?
Currently (12/2012) this book isn't even listed on his web site with his other work. I'm not going to spend a lot of time speculating why because I assume the rest of you can do an equally good job.
At the time, though it was listed but unavailable, part of me thought that maybe he wanted to hide it. Didn't want anyone to know it existed. And regardless of why that might or might not be, part of me wondered whether it was right to go looking for it. What if I'd written a book that I later wanted to unwrite? I guess that's the curse of writing things down and showing them to other people. When a kid moves from third to fourth grade, there's a chance that he can start fresh and won't have to be the kid who cried on the bus home from the potato chip factory. But when the writer cries on the way home from the potato chip factory and then writes a book about it, there's really no taking it back.
All that said, at the time, I needed a project. I needed something to do. Something that I didn't know anyone else had done, and something to make me feel like I could make choices for myself. I would get the book, and then I, ME, I would decide whether or not to read it.
It took some doing. Through the old web site, I found a distributor of the book, which no longer listed the book but listed several other items, albums and the like. The distributor didn't have any copies. THEN I looked on their web site for some of the retail outlets that carried their stuff, boutique shops in Los Angeles. After getting two responses, one completely abhorrent and unnecessarily asshole-ish, the other extremely helpful and friendly, I was told that Patrick DeWitt's brother had some and would send me one.
Done and done.
It took me almost a year to read it. Like I said, things weren't going so great. And getting it, that was a win. But once I read it, the win would be over. At least that's the only reason I can think of for reading about half of it and then putting it down.
It's a good little book. Half of it is lists and whatnot, which I didn't really need, but the slightly longer pieces were excellent. This is a guy who can break your heart in 250 words, and the reason I can give for the other strange parts are maybe that to have such a feeling page after page would be too much.
At any rate, since then Dewitt hit big with the Sisters Brothers, an excellent book, and before that he wrote Ablutions, which is one of my favorites of all time. He's a great writer, and maybe he's his own harshest critic as well.
As for me...it's been a year and things are different. And I'm probably still my own harshest critic as well.
It was somewhat of an ordeal.
Amazon, Worldcat, all the usual sources were completely empty.
So where does one head from there?
Currently (12/2012) this book isn't even listed on his web site with his other work. I'm not going to spend a lot of time speculating why because I assume the rest of you can do an equally good job.
At the time, though it was listed but unavailable, part of me thought that maybe he wanted to hide it. Didn't want anyone to know it existed. And regardless of why that might or might not be, part of me wondered whether it was right to go looking for it. What if I'd written a book that I later wanted to unwrite? I guess that's the curse of writing things down and showing them to other people. When a kid moves from third to fourth grade, there's a chance that he can start fresh and won't have to be the kid who cried on the bus home from the potato chip factory. But when the writer cries on the way home from the potato chip factory and then writes a book about it, there's really no taking it back.
All that said, at the time, I needed a project. I needed something to do. Something that I didn't know anyone else had done, and something to make me feel like I could make choices for myself. I would get the book, and then I, ME, I would decide whether or not to read it.
It took some doing. Through the old web site, I found a distributor of the book, which no longer listed the book but listed several other items, albums and the like. The distributor didn't have any copies. THEN I looked on their web site for some of the retail outlets that carried their stuff, boutique shops in Los Angeles. After getting two responses, one completely abhorrent and unnecessarily asshole-ish, the other extremely helpful and friendly, I was told that Patrick DeWitt's brother had some and would send me one.
Done and done.
It took me almost a year to read it. Like I said, things weren't going so great. And getting it, that was a win. But once I read it, the win would be over. At least that's the only reason I can think of for reading about half of it and then putting it down.
It's a good little book. Half of it is lists and whatnot, which I didn't really need, but the slightly longer pieces were excellent. This is a guy who can break your heart in 250 words, and the reason I can give for the other strange parts are maybe that to have such a feeling page after page would be too much.
At any rate, since then Dewitt hit big with the Sisters Brothers, an excellent book, and before that he wrote Ablutions, which is one of my favorites of all time. He's a great writer, and maybe he's his own harshest critic as well.
As for me...it's been a year and things are different. And I'm probably still my own harshest critic as well.
January 6, 2008
I think somewhere in the beginning of this book (the forward I think it's called) Patrick Dewitt claims this is a one day affair, I took three but totally enjoyed it. Some of this stuff could be campfire lore for children, the mundane adult world told to them in a slightly frightening laissez faire tongue. There's also some lists, which I count as poems, the kind that make me laugh. There's ghosts, say no more. If you like modern indie poetry and writing the likes of David Berman and I don't know who else, then you'll like this book at least half as much as I do.
January 11, 2008
Extremely handsome.
July 4, 2023
THE BEST BOOK EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 12, 2008
i'm a believer
April 3, 2008
This small, self-published book was on the end-cap at Powell's. It's completely my aesthetic: spare, wry, taut prose–with bite.
July 9, 2009
Fucking wonderful. Current favorite for contemporary fiction.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews