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List Price: $25.00 | | Publisher: Scribner
Salesrank: 75406
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Editorial Review:
As a child and teenager, Nathan Rabin viewed pop culture as a life-affirming form of escape. Today, pop culture is his life. For more than a decade, he's served as head writer for A.V. Club, the entertainment section of The Onion. In The Big Rewind, Rabin shares his too-strange-for-fiction life story. From a psilocybin-addled trip to the Anne Frank House to having focus groups for his movie-review panel show opine that all the male critics seemed "gay" and that the show as a whole was "too gay," Rabin discusses his personal evolution in prose as hilarious as it is unexpectedly poignant.
Using a specific song, album, book, film, or television show as a springboard to discuss a period in his life, Rabin recounts his heartwarming tale of triumph over adversity® with biting wit and unwise candor. The pop culture touchstones Rabin uses here reflect his broad frame of reference with comic dissertations on The Simpsons, The Catcher in the Rye, Dr. Dre, Grey Gardens, The Great Gatsby, the Magnetic Fields, the uncanny parallels between Ol' Dirty Bastard and John F. Kennedy, and how the stock market mirrors the pimp game.
Rabin writes movingly about how pop culture helped save him from suicidal despair, institutionalization, and parental abandonment -- throughout a childhood that sent him ricocheting from a mental hospital to a foster home to a group home for emotionally disturbed adolescents. The Big Rewind is also a touching narrative of a motherless child's search for family and acceptance and a darkly comic valentine to Rabin's lovable, hard-luck dad.
Featuring cameos by Billy Bob Thornton, a vomiting Topher Grace, and Barack Obama, The Big Rewind chronicles the surreal journey of Rabin's life and its intersection with the dizzying, maddening, wonderful world of entertainment.
The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture Reviews:
just obnoxious 
2009-10-13 - This is only the second time I've posted a review on Amazon after several years of purchases, and I'm doing it now because I can't recall the last time I came across such an obnoxious voice in print. The Washington Post review above hits the nail on the head. The Big Rewind strains to be funny, but fails. That's forgivable, but what isn't is the author's condescension towards everyone and everything in his life, whether it's his alleged friends or lovers or the movies and music he claims to love. You kind of feel sorry for someone who seems so blissfully unaware of how nasty he is and how insignificant his pursuits are. I mean, honestly, talking about how Reservoir Dogs changed your life?
Hilarious 
2009-10-06 - This book is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Not many people can make their stay in a mental institution into a funny situation but Nathan manages to do so. I will agree with other reviewers that the section on his movie reviewing was a little drawn out but other wise it was pretty funny. I found myself laughing out loud which is something I rarely do when reading a book. Also I grew up in the North Shore of Chicago and went to over night camp in Wisconsin so I could relate to a lot of Nathan's experiences. I look forward to more books from Nathan.
Nathan Rabin's remarkable and sordid tale of triumph over adversity 
2009-10-05 - "Hopelessness is your friend." Words do not ring more true. Such hard-won, pessimistic wisdom as this is a bountiful element of Nathan Rabin's remarkable memoir The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture. His first book, Rabin recounts his fascinating life story that seesaws between the lows his lifelong battle with depression took him to (a brief imprisonment in a television-less mental institution at fourteen and some rather rough years spent in the college town of Madison, Wisconsin) and the exhilarating yet impermanent highs literally brought to him by pop culture (his popular work at The Onion's AV Club and the quasi-decadence of following in Ebert's footsteps as a film critic on a little-seen movie-review panel show for AMC).
Rabin learned early in his adolescence that looking ahead, hoping, optimism - these were things not meant for him because they could only lead to disappointment; it's far easier to win big when anything good in life comes as a pleasant surprise. After all, his coined sign-off for Newswires on the AV Club website is advising readers to be "cautiously optimistic." But for someone whom luck seems to have avoided like the plague at times, Rabin has had the pleasure of luck ferociously attacking him as well. Despite his traumatic and unconventional upbringing he has entered adulthood a well-adjusted man, perhaps due in large part to guidance coming at the right time from the right people. Or perhaps due to his own determination to come out on the other side of the fight as the winner, for a fight is what much of his life seems to have been. Rabin's strength is evident in his writing: he's been knocked down, but never knocked out.
In a perfect world, parents wouldn't have crippling illnesses or abandon their children, and group homes wouldn`t be necessary; bullies would not exist as people would never be insensitive, hurtful or vicious to others; we wouldn't fall victim to our own debilitating demons such as depression; and above all, unfortunate circumstances beyond our control would be unheard of. Instead, with his signature sharp humor and a loving embrace of pop culture, Rabin's memoir reveals how he maneuvered himself through this imperfect world using his "personal pantheon" as our guide. Each chapter's tone is set by a movie, book, song, or pop culture figure personally significant to Rabin and his story. It may seem reductionist to some to boil down his story to an assortment of pop culture artifacts - some more loosely associated to his story than others - but then you would miss his message. And indeed, who are we to judge the relevance of his association with these pop culture selections? Their import in this context are relevant to him and him alone.
In many ways pop culture saved him and it seems only fitting for him to relate his story through the prism of pop culture. At 33, Rabin has a lot of life left to live. We are "cautiously optimistic" that any future sequel to his memoir will tell a much happier tale of fortune and glory.
Additional Notes: It should be pointed out that the above Washington Post review incorrectly interprets Rabin's "head writer" role at the AV Club and falsely paints the publication as the "brainchild" of Rabin when in fact it was created by former editor Stephen Thompson. Rabin is not an editor and does not have creative control over the content of the publication, except what he publishes himself in features. Also, his "My Year of Flops" column with the AV Club is proof enough that he has an undying love for pop culture. The Washington Post review is very much so off the mark to believe Rabin, or anyone else at AV Club for that matter, hates pop culture.
A Movie Obsessed Chuck Klosterman
2009-09-23 - Who is Nathan Rabin and why should you care about reading his memoir?
Great question.
Nathan is a film critic who writes for THE ONION'S AV CLUB He was also one of the film critics on the short lived AMC movie review show THE MOVIE CLUB WITH JOHN RIDLEY.
THE BIG REWIND is divided into chapters, each beginning with some pop culture item, a book, a movie, or song, and then jumping into a related anecdote. He is sort of a movie obsessed Chuck Klosterman, only with a much darker life.
Nathan was abandoned by his mother early on, and lived with his father, who was diagnosed with MS. Nathan was even sent to a mental institution briefly, only leaving when his father's insurance ran out.
After his father was unable to care for him, he was sent to live in a group home. Even more terrifying than the group home were his years living in a clothing optional, drug filled co-op in the 90's.
Klosterman just had to live in the middle of nowhere without MTV. Nathan really had it rough!
Through it all, Nathan is a terrific writer.
There is also a very funny segment on his "Frank Grimes". If you get that reference (and I did), you will love this book.
Even if you have no idea who he is, this is a great read.
A solid first-effort from an emerging talent...
2009-09-17 - Let me preface this review by stating that I agree 100% with the 2 "most helpful reviews" Don't worry, I won't give you another synopsis, as a Top 1000 Reviewer has already done a fabulous job of that.
Are there issues with the plot structure? Yes. Does it ramble at times? Yes. Are there other problems? Yes. Many first-time authors will give readers the same experience with their first novel. Only a few get it right the first time.
Anyone who is immersed in pop culture (and that seems to apply to just about every American these days) will enjoy "The Big Rewind". This certainly includes any fans of "The Onion" and it's AV Club. So... will you enjoy every word, page and chapter? Most likely not. Quite hilarious and quite touching at times, the bottomline is that this novel is certainly worth a look. Nathan is a tremendous talent who we (hopefully) can expect much more from in the future.
