Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz

I wrote this review for Tony Isabella's site a few months ago. I encourage you to take the time to check out his site and rummage though the archive. Then, if you feel like it, drop on by the discussion board and hoist a few words with a great bunch of people.

Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz

The title alone should tell you that there is something fishy about “Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz” by Peter Kuper. Shouldn’t Walter Kurtz be writing the autobiography of Walter Kurtz? Well, in a way he is. As Peter Kuper says on the book flap, “I could never delve as deep and reveal as many embarrassing details as he has bravely (?) done in this book.” Well, yeah, I can see that. There is a lot in this book attributed to the life of Kurtz that I wouldn’t want to cop to either, so Mad Magazine contributor Peter Kuper invented Kurtz to take the heat in his stead.

This is a beautifully produced book told in short vignettes of Kuper’s, uh, I mean, Kurtz’s life. Spanning 35 years, they cover everything from his awakening sexual desires through his teenage, college and adult drug usage, his friends, his girlfriends, his boyfriend, his wife and marriage, the birth of his daughter, his art career, his horror at the election and re-election of George Bush and the ultimate horror of September 11th.

Kuper incorporates work from his own commercial career, such as “Richie Bush, The Poor Little Origarch” and his “Spy vs. Spy” work for Mad (called “Ebony vs. Ivory” here) to fill out the resume of Walter Kurtz. Employing a three-color printing process Kuper easily moves you from his main story to the world of fantasy, flashback and drug-induced delusion. It works surprisingly well allowing for moments of digression and exposition in the middle of running narrative.

I found the book to be a pure joy. I laughed a lot, cringed quite a bit and almost teared up a couple of times. It’s an adult book with adult subject matter, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously and strikes a wonderful tone. Mostly it’s silly self-parody, but at other times there is striking poignancy. His title page for September 11, 2001 is genius in its simplistic depiction of a world turning upside down.

Kurtz is embarrassed by much of his life, but aren’t we all? I read in the Los Angeles Times recently that once a month a bar in Brooklyn holds an event called “Cringe Night” at which anyone can go up on stage and read what they wrote when they were teenagers. Poems, letters, journals, diary entries, it doesn’t matter. They say the experience is cathartic for both the listeners in the audience and the reader on stage, as they laugh at the thoughts that once dominated their life. “Stop Forgetting to Remember” struck me like that. “What a doofus this Kurtz/Kuper guy is” I thought as I read, but the truth was a little different. I recognized myself on almost every page of this book and when I laughed at Walter Kurtz, I was laughing at myself as well. Not a bad way to spend $20.