Review: The Catastrophe Hour by Meghan Daum (LA Times)

Everyone has a friend who likes to tell it how it really is. They wear their iconoclasm like a badge of pride. They’re the contrarian at the party who delights in puncturing polite shibboleths, unafraid to take on even their own tribes in pursuit of a deeper truth. Real talk, for them, is the only honest and authentic kind of dialogue.

Meghan Daum is a fully paid-up member of the real-talk brigade. She’s been an opinion writer here at The Times (from 2005 to 2016) and a personal essayist of sometimes provocative proclivities for decades. Her 2014 collection “The Unspeakable” exemplified her disdain for being “phony for the sake of decorum.” Subjects including the death of her mother — “I was as relieved as I’d planned to be” — and her decision to get married (or not) and have children (or not) were placed under unsentimental scrutiny. The book won Daum the PEN Center USA Literary Award for creative nonfiction; more than a decade later, it still entertains.

For the review in full, visit The Los Angeles Times.