Quotes
“Narrator Bronson Pinchot delivers this memoir with a wistful tone and dramatic timing…The result is an engaging memoir built on an emotional roller coaster of missed opportunities. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile
“Wickedly compelling…By turns funny and wrenching,
the narrative is an unforgettable tour de force of memory, love, and
imagination.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Skyhorse follows The Madonnas of Echo Park with an account of his own Los Angeles childhood in the Echo
Park neighborhood in a family so dysfunctional it seems to be
fictional…A
harrowing, compulsively readable story of one man’s remarkable search
for identity.” Booklist
“A beautiful, compassionate, but also hilarious and hair-raising tale of one boy’s life, the lies and truths his mother told, and the damage and the magic she created. Brando Skyhorse is an irresistible writer with an incredible story.” Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author
“The details of Brando Skyhorse’s life are as
outlandish and attention grabbing as his name. Imagine the kind of mother who
advertises you for adoption in the back of a magazine and then denies it to your
face or the kind of stepfather who calls his prison ‘Arizona State,’ as if
discussing his alma mater. Take This Man is a funny and harrowing
and touching portrait of the abyss in families between what we know we should
do and how our hearts lead us to behave.” Jim Shepard, National Book Award finalist
“Take This Man is as astonishing a memoir as I've ever read.
Brando Skyhorse’s beautifully told tale of his truly bizarre childhood and his
search for a father moved me in a way that few books have. I will never forget
Skyhorse’s charismatic mother and grandmother, nor the tortured triangle the
three of them formed. I was reminded at times of Geoffrey Wolff’s The
Duke of Deception, and also of The Glass Castle by
Jeanette Walls and The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer. But I
guarantee that this is a family story unlike any you’ve read before. It
deserves to become a classic.” Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author
“Brando Skyhorse’s unputdownable Take This Man is
one of the most moving and mesmerizing memoirs I’ve ever read. I’m still
reeling. Its familial dysfunction rivals The Glass Castle, the
poetry of the language echoes This Boy’s Life, and the bravery in
Skyhorse’s search for answers, for a family, conjures up Wild. Yet
Skyhorse’s memoir is wholly and uniquely his own. As his mother’s mantra went:
‘At least it’s never boring.’ And it never is. This is a miraculous memoir from
a spectacularly talented writer.” Susannah Cahalan, New York Times bestselling author
“Take This Man reaches
beyond the bounds of my imagination. We use the word ‘survivor’ with disgracefully
casual ease. But this writer truly survived being held hostage, raised by
wolves. Brando’s grandmother and mother are terrifying and mesmerizing. Their
cruelty to their biographer was audacious, calculated, and thrilling to read.
Stories molested him and nourished him. And it is with relief that I read in Take
This Man flashes of Brando’s bitterness and heat, sane fury directed
at the Scheherazades who toyed with him. Whatever else they did to him, when he
escaped he knew how to tell a story, and this is one hell of story.” Geoffrey Wolff, Pulitzer Prize finalist
“Skyhorse’s vivid and idiosyncratic
family memoir traces his ongoing struggle to search for an identity and
fatherly guidance amidst his entanglement in his mother’s chaotic
lifestyle…Skyhorse’s upbringing has had
lasting effects on his romantic relationships and mental health, but he
manages to write about his experiences and those who shaped them with
grace. By turns darkly comical and moving, this powerful memoir of a
family in flux will stick with readers well after they’ve put it down.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
