A friend's friend was president of his frat in college. He freaks out every time you say "frat." He is a long-necked geek who laughs like Professor Frink on the Simpsons. He says, "You can't abbreviate that way. Would you call your 'country' a . . . ?"This book was the first thing that came up when I Googled "frat memoir," so I bought it for a penny on Amazon. Well worth the money. Land has a strong, unique voice that expresses dread well. And what dread - the subjects of the memoir are his abduction and assault by car jackers, his attempt (and failure) to join a frat at Clemson, and the death of a fellow fraternity pledge. He does well with writing terse, "masculine" prose both at the sentence and the paragraph level. I took notes on technique."Masculine" is in scare quotes because it doesn't describe the character Land builds up. What I didn't expect was for a protagonist in a frat memoir to be a sensitive, romantic pussy who cries a lot and wants girls to save his life. I don't mean that in any insulting way, but I do think the author's voice isn't quite as masculine as its form declares it to be. For example, Land can't take the hazing, so he quits. He doesn't write very memoiristic. There isn't reflection nor a wiser, older perspective. He writes in present tense. So like a good man-writer like Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy, he sticks to the facts and lets the readers use the author's choice of facts to deduce the emotions behind the narrator. But I wanted a little more guidance from the author. Did he connect the violence of his car jacking to the violence of the frat hazing? Or could he just not stick out the hazing because he was too artsy fartsy? I think he means to imply the former, but my suspicion believed the latter. Especially because the violence of the frat hazing is voluntary and not even that violent. He gets called names, they slap him and punch his head, they throw footballs at his head, not much more than the stuff we've all heard about before. Cry me a river, pantywaist! It's weird how I've read a bunch of memoirs recently where I feel skeptical of the author's self-representation . . . I think there might be something wrong with me.This glum Camus is the opposite extreme of an ecstatic asshole's celebration of college whoredom (like I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell), and now I am in the market for an ordinary person's frat memoir - not too chauvinist, not too morose, but just average and descriptive. I want somebody like my friend's friend to write a frat memoir; I would really like to know more about what an average boring joe thinks of his average boring frat.
Stylistically reminiscent of James Frey, which is a sort-of cheap shot when it comes to memoirs. I read this in a day, which I don't get to do often, because of time - yes - but also because there hasn't been a book as gripping. I think the one thing most people won't like about this is his almost stream-of-thought, conversational writing style. It's definitely not academic. While it doesn't bother me I wonder if it's a good style to take on. At times it almost feels too easy. But I don't write anything so what can I say about it really? There are, however, passages that stood out and really affected me: And it's fine that it's been this way with girls for a while now, these random things, because I know I'm too much for anyone, that if I let myself, I'd love them all, I'd think they could fix me. But I know they can't, and it's enough, because every so often when a girl kisses me, touches my hand, my face, I remember that the world has light.Reading it over now I can see how even this is written very conversationally and simply, and I can see how it could get on people's nerves. It did bother me a little, just a little-little. But mostly it just sucked me in to the story because I felt I could trust this guy telling the story, that he wasn't putting on airs. I felt like I knew him. It helps that I met him with three of my best buds, and we hung out in his hotel room, shooting the shit. Yeah, that's right. Those are my buds in the front and I'm next to my boy Brad in the back and next to him is my wing man David Gordon Green, yawn - maybe you've heard of him. I gotta go to a premiere down the street. Peace.
Do You like book Goat: A Memoir (2005)?
I found this to be quite a heart-breaking memoir on many levels. For me, it works on the strength of Land's voice as well as the enviable relationship between the two brothers. The narrative loses its way a bit in the middle when his relationship with his brother is suffering but by the end Brad and the memoir make their way home. Which I guess is appropriate. I liked his description of his initial attack, which serves as a catalyst for the events that follow in the book. This is the kind of mem
—Susan
My overall rating for Brand Land’s memoir Goat is a 3 out of 5 stars.After everything Brad has been through with getting beaten up by people he doesn’t even know he is very insecure and never feels safe. His brother Brett is in a fraternity called Kappa Sigma, Brad feels like that if he was with his brother he would feel less scared and insecure. Brad goes through the struggles of hazing and being a pledge and tries to find the right way to deal with it. Brett goes through the struggles of helping his brother get better by giving him his space even if Brad doesn’t want it. A strength that I saw in Goat was how real the situation Brad was going through was. A lot of people have problems with being insecure and scared of their past or something that has happened in their past. For instance they go into great detail about Brad and Brett’s feelings. Brad didn’t want to quit the fraternity because he would come off as weak. Brett wanted to go and help his brother during all the hazing but he wanted Brad to learn to be strong on his own so that he wouldn’t rely on Brett the rest of his life. Brad talks about how he is frustrated and doesn’t know what to do or even barely know anyone in the fraternity. After getting beaten up he is always worried about what is going to happen next. For example he is always thinking “If i quit the fraternity then what would I do. Who would I have there for me.” I like how Brad expresses that because it probably reaches out to a lot of people because a lot of people go through the same exact thing. This a significant amount of language in Goat, it uses the “f-bomb” a lot. There is also some sexal situations in the book that might intrude on your enjoyment of the book. However these things did not affect me or my enjoyment of Goat.I think that this book would attract people who are men getting ready to go to college. The book talks about college situations and fraternity and sorority groups. It also relates to thoughts of older people. At the senior/college level age, a lot of people have the same thoughts that Brad did, worrying and being insecure about a lot of different things. This book gives good advice on what to do in certain situations, and probably will ease some peoples nerves on going to college and debating on if you want to be in a fraternity or sorority.
—Genevieve Wandro
My overall rating of the book Goat by: Brad Land was 2 stars. I thought this because while it was a good book it just wasn’t for me. tBrad in this book had to go through a traumatizing experience. This book explains his recovery from that and the challenges he faces. He joins a fraternity to try and take his mind off things. What he doesn’t know is the challenges he will face with his fellow beginners. tI think that the strongest part of this text was that Brad Land did a good job of portraying the problems someone who was assaulted may face and the ways he is treated. I believe that the things he writes was pretty graphic. And the ways the people around him try to help him and the way he thinks of himself was pretty interesting because he had a strange way of thinking. tI think that the people who might like this the most are people who may have gone through the same ordeal or know someone who might have gone through the same thing. Or someone who may have done something like this and regrets it. So they know what they put that person through.
—Noaho
