When famed writer and comedian Glenn Rockowitz released his best-selling memoir, Rodeo in Joliet, back in 2009, it immediately struck a chord with longtime fans and readers alike. Key to this was Rockowitz’s self-effacing tone and the ability to find the humor in just about anything, even a very ‘unfunny’ bout with cancer. Fortunately, Rockowitz lived to the tale, a harrowing story that the author has decided to revisit in the long-awaited follow-up, COTTON TEETH.

While COTTON TEETH revisits Rockowitz’s darkest days, the book is anything but a retread. With the benefit of hindsight some thirteen years in the making, Rockowitz reexamines his cancer diagnosis, but this time the big ‘C’ is only a tiny piece of a much larger puzzle. For instance, within weeks of receiving news regarding his miraculous remission, Rockowitz’s father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a disease that would soon take his life. From there, Rockowitz dives deep into his past, exploring the friendships and traumas of his youth that would ultimately shape his life. It’s often a heavy, gut-wrenching ride (especially the section where the author deliberates telling his bed-ridden father about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child), and the reader is rarely spared the details. Still, Rockowitz somehow manages to find and harvest the small slivers of hope and positivity that coincide with every tragedy.

The most profound example of this comes by way of his nonprofit comedy group, Best Medicine. Envisioned as a way to bring comedy to the terminally ill, Rockowitz’s group encounters one heartbreaking moment after another. But with death an ever-present thought for everyone involved, Rockowitz and his ever-resourceful cohorts provide laughter for those who need it the most. For a man who’s overcome so much adversity, Rockowitz has little interest in self-aggrandizing. If anything, his brutal self-assessments, which admittedly include some pretty unflattering moments, are offered as a way to provide a sense of context to his accomplishments. The man is far from a saint, but that doesn’t erase his gratitude for the improbable second chance life saw fit to grant him.

The anecdotes and stories that comprise COTTON TEETH are worth the price of admission alone, but it’s Rockowitz’s wholly original writing style that ultimately elevates this memoir into ‘must read’ territory. Where so many authors become preoccupied with ‘the rules’ in the hopes of ensuring maximum palpability, Rockowitz tosses anything resembling convention out the window. Instead, his writing unfolds on the page like prose. Sentence fragments and dialogue careen into one another, while a stark background, alternating between black and white, signifies the shifting of time periods. Regardless of how it all may sound, the effect is arresting, and within a few pages, you may find yourself wondering, “why don’t more authors do this?”

From the visually arresting layout to the expressive writing style, Glenn Rockowitz accomplishes the next-to-impossible with COTTON TEETH and delivers a heart-wrenching memoir that inspires just as many laughs as it does tears.

~James Weiskittel for IndieReader