Purchase online : $48.00
Available in the Salt Lake area at:
Ken Sanders Rare Books
268 South 200 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84111-2412
801.521.3819
The King's English Bookshop
1511 South 1500 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
801.484.9100
The Trouble With Being Young
While going through the written pieces for the first book I collaborated with my father on, I Wish Things Were Different, I started building the idea for this one. I noticed a common theme of love, anti-love, and relationship experiences in much of the writings. The writing itself is at times juvenile and full of angst, and at other times aged and experienced. I felt like his personal stories of his young and awkward years of dating, girls, and confusion about puberty all together, are relatable for so many people, or at least those willing to admit it.
I am my father’s son, and while we grew up in different times, the struggles are universal. He’s seen me in relationships that lasted a week, and those spanning years, and he’ll often say that I “figured it all out” much sooner than he did. This always makes me laugh since no one has any control over romance. But I identify with his perspective on what he’s lived and who he’s loved. I let his tales be the stories they are. I have the same stories, just from a different life.
The Trouble With Being Young contains bits and pieces of real life encounters with romance. Other topics tie the book to the years of my youth, but may not have much to do with romance. Many of the pieces have a decidedly masculine feel to them, not so much bravado, as insecurity. Some of them seem sexist to me. Those were the things I and others thought and experienced. I don’t know how to be true to the times without it.
Almost all of the pieces were written well before the idea for this book came about. Some started out as diary entries. Many were inspired by letters, notes, journals, yearbooks, and other written sources. A few are from a collection of poetry I wrote in the '90s. I also relied heavily on my memory, which is as fallible as everyone else's.
When I write something emanating from my life, of necessity I include the experiences of others. They were, after all, part of what I was going through. This can at times contradict with my belief that I should not be judging the life journey of other people. Especially their romantic journey. To be able to include pieces in this project without it seeming like I was in some way judging others, I’ve photo-shopped documents and altered my own writings. Among other things, I've hidden, deleted or changed the vast majority of names throughout the book.
I want to thank Kenny Riches and Cara Despain for selecting and editing pieces for this book. The artwork is Kenny’s from a solo show at KAYO gallery, which ran between April 15 and May 14, 2011.
Finally, let me apologize for the cost of this volume. The current price of $48 is steep. It's because the illustrations are in color. In the world of printing, color comes with a price. The cost to us is three times what black and white would be. Sellers have a formula to calculate whether or not they will make a profit on a book, and won't accept pricing below their calculated profit line. But we're working on a solution. To bring the price down, we will do a second edition in black and white, and also a Kindle edition, as soon as time permits.
--Waine Riches