 The book uses novels such as "The Great Gatsby," musical recordings such as "The Charm of the Highway Strip" by The Magnetic Fields and other pop culture items as a springboard to discuss its author's tragi-comic adolescence as a guest of a mental hospital, a foster family whose patience and generosity he jokes "knew only strict, unyielding boundaries" and the Jewish Children's Bureau group home system, as well as his career with "The A.V.Club" and the short-lived film review show "Movie Club With John Ridley" on which he appeared.The book ends with a chapter about Rabin's unsuccessful audition to fill in for Roger Ebert as a guest critic on "At the Movies."