Important Things That Don't Matter - by David Amsden (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

So Dad's around lately. That's it. And I want to tell you things, throw fragments your way that I barely understand. Because it's just funny, flat out, the way someone you don't even know can get up in your face, tweak things that should be so ordinary. Or I think it's funny. Maybe you will too.

Hailed by The New Yorker as "a fictional report from the strip-mall front lines of Generation Y," Important Things That Don't Matter is a provocative, moving, darkly funny portrait of family and divorce, a boy and his father, the eighties and nineties, and sex and intimacy that raises vital questions about a generation just now reaching adulthood.

From the Back Cover

So Dad's around lately. That's it. And I want to tell you things, throw fragments your way that I barely understand. Because it's just funny, flat out, the way someone you don't even know can get up in your face, tweak things that should be so ordinary. Or I think it's funny. Maybe you will too.

Hailed by The New Yorker as "a fictional report from the strip-mall front lines of Generation Y," Important Things That Don't Matter is a provocative, moving, darkly funny portrait of family and divorce, a boy and his father, the eighties and nineties, and sex and intimacy that raises vital questions about a generation just now reaching adulthood.

Review Quotes

"For once, a comparison to John Updike or John Cheever is not delusional, wishful thinking or marketing hype. David Amsden is an invigorating, original, and sickeningly talented writer." - Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors

"David Amsden is an invigorating, original, and sickeningly talented writer." - Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors

"Conversational and tough, the novel's observant narrator is bound to captivate readers." - Booklist

"...so refreshingly un-Generation X..." - Los Angeles Times

"This child of divorce has an emblematic, timeless aura...There's a smart, understated lyricism to [Amsden's] Kodachrome evocations of teenage ups and downs." - Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Hypnotically engaging and almost painfully genuine...an extremely talented writer." - Salon

"The novel's so real and personal it's like being in this Gen Y kid's skin for 15 formative years." - Entertainment Weekly

"Absorbing...a daring narrative that resonates with the heartbreaking emotion that lurks between Amsden's sharply written lines." - BookPage

"You've got to hate this guy. He's already been called the voice of his generation." - New York Times

"There are moments of literary brilliance in this story that will dazzle the reader." - John Searles, author of Boy Still Missing

"Nothing short of phenomenal!" - Nick Fowler, author of A Thing (Or Two) About Curtis and Camilla

"Really, really great...close-to-the-nerve honesty, severe suffering, intertwined with that leavening cynical humor." - J.T. Leroy, author of Sarah

"The narrator's voice is a likable mixture of bewilderment and tentative black humor...well cast and darkly ironic." - Publishers Weekly

"This book is a complete winner. Smart, charming, fresh, compelling--Amsden is a writer with enormous talent." - Bill Buford, author of Among the Thugs