Book Review: Class Clown

How does the son of a Presbyterian minister wind up winning a Pulitzer Prize for writing a wildly inaccurate newspaper column read by millions of people?

Dave Berry began his journalism career at a small-town Pennsylvania newspaper where he learned the most important rule of local journalism: never confuse a goose with a duck. Somehow from there he wound up as a humor columnist for The Miami Herald, where his boss was a wild man who encouraged him to write about anything that struck him as amusing and to never worry about alienating anyone.

His columns slowly grew in popularity, but he quickly developed a loyal following of readers. He became a book author and joined a literary rock band, which was not good at playing music but did once perform with Bruce Springsteen, who sang backup to Dave. As for his literary merits, Dave writes: “I’ll never have the critical acclaim of, say, Marcel Proust. But was Marcel Proust ever on Carson? Did he ever steal a hotel sign for Oprah?”

Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass by Dave Barry will be published May 13, 2025. Simon and Schuster provided an early galley for review.

In the 90's, I was drawn into Dave Barry's world by the aptly titled Dave's World sitcom which starred Harry Anderson. I recall reading a few of his humor books (often collections of his columns) around that period as well. I found both entertaining, and that's what inspired me to pick his upcoming memoir for a read. That along with the fact that as a life-long inspiring writer, I am fascinated by the things professional writers have to say and how they got where they came to be.

Though we grew up two decades apart, I could very much relate to Barry's youth years. I found it interesting to hear about his parents and family, along with his collegiate pursuits. This is told very much in a standard autobiography manner.

Where the style changes up is when he starts working as a journalist and then columnist. From this point, several moments are told with an event or person touchstone followed by excerpts from published writing of his related to those points. It is like a "greatest hits" retrospective. Fans of his writing will certainly enjoy it; I did find it a bit disjointed and dulling my interest in spots. I did appreciate those sections, though, where the true Dave Barry shone through.