It Is Best to Die in Your Sleep is a humorous vivid pastiche about the author, Michael Congdon. Learn about a brief moment in time when he was a five year old and allowed to decorate a cake, or his awkward teen years before coming out as a gay, when he was miserable and yet mysteriously bored with the mundane activities that a queer white, suburban, Catholic, military brat had to deal with, or his more tawdry and trashy adventures in his 20's and 30's and 40's as he traveled from New Mexico to Florida to Louisiana, and eventually to Seattle.
In one chapter he imagines himself to be a Genteel Southern Gentleman reading tarot and palms for his cousins, in another chapter he writes from the viewpoint of an "out of touch from reality", white, older, wealthy woman who is better than everyone reading her essay about fruit salad, then in yet another chapter he tells the story of Labor Day weekend in St. Pete, Florida, full of drugs, cigarettes, a rave, pool dye, adult theaters, sex, theft, barbequing, sand fleas, and the music he was listening to when he was 26. sandwiched in-between these are diary entries of a deceased Circuit boy, stories about living in the French Quarter of New Orleans, a 6-chapter long tale about a leather event he attended in 2008, and most importantly, food history - more specifically the memories conjured up when Michael was cooking.
Having worked in the food industry for 31 years, Michael worked his way from three months as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant when he was 14, to sixteen years as a chef and manager, at which point he retired from food at the ripe old age of 46, (and no one is sure which job he most preferred) Michael also believes if he is going to include stories about restaurants and the food industry he should add some of his signature dishes. So, if one is bored one can learn how to make a tiramisu or gazpacho. If one are feeling particularly adventurous perhaps some Saag Panir - the list goes on.
This book, including it's amuse-bouche of illustrations, and its 300 plus footnotes, is also much more than humor, the book is about my life in both experience and observation. However, its humor is rather varied: absurdist, bawdy, dry, arch, sarcastic, graphic, witty, tongue in cheek, and intelligent.