Brat: An 80s Story

by Andrew McCarthy

If you'd asked me before this year, I probably would have said I don't read many memoirs, yet somehow I've ended up picking up quite a few lately. Brat is a short, occasionally disjointed reflection on Andrew McCarthy's career and his uneasy relationship with the 1980’s label. McCarthy comes across as honest, which I appreciated, though not always especially charming. There's a certain self-seriousness to the book, and he sometimes seems more impressed with his own observations than I was. The wit doesn't land as often as he appears to think it does, but the self-examination feels genuine enough to keep things interesting. I also appreciated that the memoir isn't overloaded with celebrity anecdotes or endless name-dropping. It never quite comes together into something memorable, but it's an engaging enough read from someone willing to look back at his life with a fair amount of candor.