Intimacy Idiot

by Isaac Oliver

Overview

From an award-winning playwright “who splits the difference between David Rakoff and Larry David” (New York magazine)—a “compulsively readable debut” (Time Out New York) of big-hearted, laugh-until-you-can’t-breathe essays, stories, and riffs on finding love and intimacy in New York City.

Since moving to New York a decade ago, award-winning writer and performer Isaac Oliver has pined for countless strangers on the subway, slept with half the people in his Washington Heights neighborhood, and observed the best and worst of humanity from behind the glass of a Times Square theater box office. Whether he’s hooking up with a man who dresses as a dolphin, suffering on airplanes and buses next to people with Food From Home, or hovering around an impenetrable circle of attractive people at a cocktail party, Oliver captures the messy, moving, and absurd moments of urban life as we live it today. In this uproariously funny debut collection, he serves up a comedic cornucopia of sketches, vignettes, lists, and diaries from his life as a young, fanciful, and extremely single gay man in New York City.

“Oliver has mastered the art of self-deprecation...he can find humor and heart in the unlikeliest of places,” raves Entertainment Weekly. Culled from years of heartbreak, hook-ups, and more awkwardness than a virgin at prom and a whore in church (and he should know because he’s been both), Intimacy Idiot chronicles Oliver’s encounters with love, infatuation, resilience, and self-acceptance that echo our universal desire for intimacy of all kinds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476746685
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	06/02/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Isaac Oliver is an award-winning writer and performer. He has read stories in the How I Learned Series, Dead Darlings, The Soundtrack Series, Real Characters, Naked Radio, and On This Island. Intimacy Idiot is his first book.

Table of Contents

Online Dating Profile 1

How I Didn't Learn to Drive 4

Subway Diary 14

The Dolphin from Dubai 16

Cooking for One 25

People's Parties 26

Love Poem for the Guy across from Me on the Subway This Morning 30

Poser 32

Subway Diary 43

My Kind of Bar 47

Zoo Stories 49

Coming Up 64

A Few Key Erotic Moments from My Early Adolescence 66

Subway Diary 79

Love Poem for the Tall Drink of Water Who Shushed the Loud Gay Guys next to Me at a Concert 83

Traveling Alone 86

Cooking for One 91

Dates 92

Scene from a Box Office 103

Subway Diary 105

Triptych 109

Some Scattered Thoughts on Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Marion, Massachusetts 114

Subway Diary 118

The Horny New York Poem 121

The White Russian 124

Scene from a Box Office 126

Home Invasions 128

Cooking for One 135

Love in the Time of Eczema 136

Subway Diary 139

Ah Ah 141

Love Poem for the Fair-Haired Young Man Doing the New York Times Crossword Puzzle 145

Where I Live 148

Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage 156

Things I Know to Be True 162

A Curse 165

The Law Student 166

Love Poem for the Preppy Guy with the Single Cupcake 170

Cooking for One 172

Casual Sex Correspondence 173

How to Build a Fire (in Thirty Easy Steps) 175

The Hockey Player 180

The Lonely Christmas Poem 186

Try It 191

Box Office Hall of Shame 193

Ails 196

Obit for a Murse 203

Subway Diary 205

Over the Knee 208

Texts from My Parents on Their Cruise 211

Attend This Tale of Icy Gays 212

Cooking foe One 216

Big Ben 217

Scene from a Box Office 226

Love Poem for the Hot Young Dad Holding the Newborn on the Subway 228

Judged 229

Subway Diary 242

The Dark Place 246

Where Is Your Shakespeare? 248

Love Poem for the Classiest Gay Guy on Avenue A 250

The Rural Northwestern Ohio Tragedy Tour 254

The Woodsman 256

Love Poem for the Couple in the Honeymoon Stage across from Me on the Subway 269

Acknowledgments 273

Editorial Reviews

05/18/2015
Oliver (Showgasm) provides a mediocre entry in the genre of self-deprecating New York Gay men looking for love and finding humor instead, though it certainly has its bright spots. His chatty style and candor about sex is entertaining, as when he dedicates an entire paragraph to actor Ryan Phillippe, who "justified and fortified gayness." His comic humiliations, such as his experiences with gagging on a dust-covered sexual device, dating a furry, and getting spanked by a scruffy Italian guy, illustrate what Oliver will do for possible love. He also includes anecdotes about essays about bizarre subway rides and outrageous episodes from his day job at a theater box office. Too much of the book contains uninspired doodles such as a series of odes ("love poems") for attractive strangers he encounters in New York and "recipes" for loneliness, leaving the reader longing for more substance. Oliver certainly has comedic talent, but this haphazard collection quickly wears thin. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Affecting and effective...Oliver’s collection will please fans of David Sedaris and David Rakoff."

Booklist

"Very funny and very honest... Anyone, gay or straight, who's trying to hack his way through the dating world would enjoy this."

Chris Colfer

"[A] Gut-Buster...Oliver muses on everything from subway rides to Grindr. With his eyebrow cocked and "murse" in hand, there's no such thing as 'too far' for this New Yorker."

Out Magazine

"When it comes to getting intimate, comic writer Isaac Oliver is no idiot...Hysterical."

New York Metro

"Fans of David Sedaris and David Rakoff, take note: Here’s another bracingly sharp, unbelievably funny voice for you to embrace. Charting the highlights and mostly lowlights of living in New York City, Oliver tackles dating, intimacy, subways, cocktail parties, Times Square, and so much more via sketches, vignettes, and diary entries...guaranteed to make you laugh out loud."

Fodors "12 Books to Read on Your Summer Vacation"

"A humorous collection of essays and sketches."

Arizona Republic

"If you're looking to laugh your ass off in spite of yourself, you've come to the right place... sincere, thoughtful and genuinely funny."

Edge Boston

"A deeply personal take on what it’s like to be looking for love—or a connection—in New York. Oliver’s self-deprecating, overanalyzing take on his mishaps and encounters is one that readers will inevitably be able to relate to and commiserate with."

The Rumpus

"Hilarious."

New York "Must-Read LGBT Book" Metro

"[An] emerging talent."

Frontiers

"Isaac Oliver delivers big in his debut Intimacy Idiot. Hooks and heartbreaks are laid out like a feast for readers..Oliver's observations and encounters will strike a chord of familiarity with anyone who has been brave enough to search for connections in the urban jungle."

Muses and Visionaries

"Isaac Oliver splits the difference between David Rakoff and Larry David in a hilarious, unsparing essay collection that assesses other peoples’ social infractions and his own casual encounters with furries."

New York Magazine

"Isaac Oliver’s debut collection of humor stories, “Intimacy Idiot,” smacks of David Sedaris. And it’s not just because he’s insanely dry, incredibly witty, and has stories about being bad at driving or being bad at dating in New York City, although he does all those things, and he is brilliant at it. This is the type of book that makes you look crazy as you laugh out loud alone. I dare you not to read it and not laugh out loud alone. On the first page."

South Coast Today

"Isaac Oliver is hilarious, biting, heartfelt, physically beautiful, financially wealthy. He's like if Oscar Wilde were gay!!"

Megan Amram

"Like any young memoirist worth reading, Oliver has mastered the art of self-deprecation...Oliver can find humor and heart in the unlikeliest of places."

Entertainment Weekly

"If David Sedaris and Fran Lebowitz had a baby who wrote about subways, theater patrons and blow jobs, he might be a lot like Isaac Oliver.... [A] compulsively readable debut collection."

Time Out New York

"Balances the punchlines with pathos and genuine emotion...a great presentation of Oliver’s excellent comedy and writing abilities."

Lambda Literary

"Isaac Oliver is a tender and tenacious observer of folly and desire in our modern age."

Susanna Sonnenberg

"Oliver has [an] inviting intelligent audacity."—NewYorker.com

From the Publisher

"The best stories of awkward dating and sex are the ones that aren't happening to you. I laughed out loud at this consistently hilarious and surprisingly poignant collection from the comfort of my own home, without ever having to remove clothing in front of a stranger. Thank you, Intimacy Idiot!"

Rachel Dratch

…more than just a deeply honest, coming-of-age memoir. It’s funny, touching, enlightening, and by the end, you’ll feel like you’ve watched Oliver grow up.

Baltimore Magazine

"Isaac Oliver is one of the funniest, sharpest and smartest writers I have ever encountered...on Grindr. His book is pretty hilarious too."

Jesse Tyler Ferguson

"Hilarious and heartfelt."

Out.com

"Brilliant and hilarious and surprisingly, shockingly at times, intimate. You’ll want to have dinner with [Oliver] and maybe want to slightly protect him from the world and himself. Buy it!

Nathan Lane

"If you're still mourning the demise of Sex and the City, and wish that David Sedaris would get a little raunchier, look no further than Isaac Oliver's laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays about sleeping his way around New York. At first, his prose presents the polished self-presentation of a monologue or stand-up comedy routine, but Oliver doesn't bore by remaining on the surface. Instead, he performs a daring emotional striptease, peeling away the layers of a stock character (the promiscuous single gay man) to reveal the heart and soul beneath."

NPR.org Anya Kamenetz

"Playwright, essayist and performer Isaac Oliver is on an enviable roll."

Baltimore Style

"Affecting and effective...Oliver’s collection will please fans of David Sedaris and David Rakoff."

Booklist

2015-03-28
A gay writer reflects on his life as a single man on the prowl for sex and connection in New York City. Oliver first moved to the city to attend college. But it wasn't until after he graduated that he "started hooking up" with the colorful strangers he describes in this offbeat collection of wickedly humorous essays, sketches, and poems about urban life and love. Intimacy typically came in the form of one-night stands with men he found on Internet websites like Manhunt or mobile apps like "Grindr, Scruff, and Tindr." The men—like the married lawyer from Connecticut, the "Broadway understudy under whom [he] studied for a night," or the Australian flight attendant with a fetish for dressing up as a dolphin—were as unique as they were transient. When Oliver wasn't scoring dates or sexting with men online or handing out his telephone number to the "bartenders, waiters and merchandise managers at Broadway musicals," he was busy fantasizing about hot men on the subway. Hit-and-run as his relationships were, Oliver did occasionally think about marriage. Yet when he or his sex partners tried to communicate a desire for closeness, neither side could respond with complete acceptance. When the author tried to kiss a neighborhood hookup, the man "pulled away [and] smiled politely." When a hockey player began calling Oliver out of loneliness and despair over being diagnosed with Huntington's disease, Oliver could only listen and offer no comfort. Only after a sexless encounter with another gay writer at an artists' colony in New Hampshire did the author finally find an unacknowledged mirror for himself and his actions. The writer had plenty of opportunities for sex but not "plenty of people to confide in, people to feel close to"—just like Oliver himself, who was caught in the ceaselessly carnival-esque flow of big-city life. In-your-face funny but with surprisingly moving moments.

Kirkus Reviews