Description
Before he became a beloved memoirist, he built imaginary cities out of blocks. Famous Builder (Graywolf Press, 2002) is the lively, loving essay collection in which Paul Lisicky explores the constant impulse to rebuild: the self, the family story, the life.
Born into a family whose incremental success lifted them above their immigrant upbringing, Lisicky writes with tenderness and wit about growing up gay in the suburbs, the mothers and fathers who shape us, and the strange work of becoming a writer. The ‘famous builder’ of the title is both the child architect of fantasy cities and the adult essayist, still constructing — sentence by sentence — a self that can hold.
What makes this book endure is its generosity: Lisicky never sneers at his origins; he honors them even as he outgrows them. For memoir readers and fans of his later work like The Narrow Door — where the voice begins: warm, exact, quietly dazzling. A small classic of the American essay.
Before Paul Lisicky became one of America’s most beloved memoirists, he was a boy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, building imaginary cities out of blocks — and rehearsing the person he hoped to become. Famous Builder, published by Graywolf Press in 2002, is the lively, loving collection of essays in which Lisicky explores that constant impulse to rebuild: the self, the family story, the life.
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Born into a family whose incremental success lifted them a notch above their immigrant upbringing, Lisicky writes with tenderness and wit about growing up gay in the suburbs, about the mothers and fathers who shape us, and about the strange work of becoming a writer. The ‘famous builder’ of the title is both the child architect of fantasy cities and the adult essayist, still constructing — sentence by sentence — a self that can hold.
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What makes this book so enduring is its generosity. Lisicky never sneers at his origins; he honors them, even as he outgrows them. For readers of memoir, for anyone who has ever tried to remake themselves, and for fans of Lisicky’s later work like The Narrow Door, Famous Builder is where the voice begins: warm, exact, and quietly dazzling. A small classic of the American essay.
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