In the book, Halpernawards his brutally honest but hilarious father with the distinction of beingthe “least passive-aggressive person on the planet,” while at the same timelikening him to “Socrates, but angrier and with worse hair,” on the insidecover. With father and son together again last year, Halpern decided to, at thesuggestion of a friend, create a Twitter page to “keep a record of all thecrazy things” his dad said.
It was a goodsuggestion. “Shit My Dad Says” quickly became a Twitter smash, as thousandsandthen hundreds of thousandsof people discovered Halpern’s crude and enjoyableone-liners. “Shit My Dad Says” currently has more than 1 million followers, andwhere there are numbers there are networks and publishers waiting to cash in.“Shit My Dad Says” is scheduled to become a sitcom starring William Shatner onCBS. And now, as a book, it’s a New YorkTimes best seller.
The book will notdisappoint fans of the Twitter feed. It is a hilarious, often embarrassing,sentimental account of growing upspecifically, growing up in the Halpernhousehold. Every chapter is funny, but some are exceptionally so, like “NeverAssume That Which You Do Not Know,” which chronicles a hellish family road tripfrom San Diego to Washington. Or “A Man’s House Is His House,”which involves a shotgun, awkward nudity, and an immensely awkward aftermath.
As the author of Sh*t My Dad Says, one might expectHalpern to shy away from serious conversations and vulnerable moments, but hedoesn’tand when these moments do occur, they do so naturally and believably.This is especially true of his father, who through Twitter was introduced as a“character,” but through the book reveals himself to be a man who really loveshis family, in addition to his daily bowl of Grape-Nuts.
