EW's GRADE
C+

Details Release Date: Feb 05, 2008; Writer: David Shields; Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction; Publisher: Knopf

English prof David Shields meditates on aging, mortality, and his outrageous 97-year-old dad in The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead.

Most Dysfunctional Moment
He compares the length of his ''boringly, frustratingly average'' member with his ''markedly more well-endowed'' pop's.

Lowdown
An intriguing father-son tale is trapped beneath a mountain of literary quotations and medical factoids (''Arteriosclerosis can begin as early as age 20,'' etc.). C+

Originally posted Feb 07, 2008 Published in issue #978 Feb 15, 2008 Order article reprints

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