A review by scorpstar77
The World's Largest Man by Harrison Scott Key

3.0

The author wrote a memoir of growing up with his father, a man handy with a belt (for whipping), a gun (for killing animals), a football (as a player and then a coach), and babies (known by many as a Baby Whisperer) - all things the author feels he is not at all good with. Key explores his great love for his father through a lens of complicated feelings. He both worships his father and is unapologetically his opposite; he looks down on his father and then realizes he shares some of the same embarrassing traits. I laughed heartily at some points, and inwardly cringed at others. I think the glib treatment of racism held me back from becoming invested for a while - there were parts, like that, where it just felt like he was trying too hard to be funny over a subject that really just isn't funny at all. I liked the book - especially Key's exploration of his own marriage toward the end - but despite having grown up in the same time period in the same kind of rural Southern community, I just never felt I really connected with the author, so I didn't love it.