The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs (August, 2020 on Coffee House Press) is my second book.
Some praise includes:
One of NPR’s best books of 2020
Booklist, “Best New Books 2020”
New York magazine/Vulture, “29 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer”
Chicago Tribune, “10 Summer Books to Read”
Esquire, “Best Summer Books of 2020”
Town & Country, “Best Summer Books for 2020”
The Week, “19 Books to Read in 2020”
Literary Hub, “Best New Books to Read This Summer”
Refinery 29, “Best Summer Books 2020”
“For those of us who grew up outside of the suburbs, or encased by suburbs, there may have been a longing to understand their interior. The Sprawl is such a generous book for how it both acknowledges the privileges of boundary but also demystifies the small living moments that take place within. This is a warm and thoughtful book that doesn’t just coast on beauty and nostalgia without challenging both.” —Hanif Abdurraqib
“Thoughtful, well-researched, and beautifully rendered, The Sprawl is a book that offers us insight into the suburban spaces that define America. Throughout each chapter, Diamond manages to be both generous and unsparing, funny and deeply thorough, in his analysis of the parking lots, privilege, and prejudice that infuse the America of our childhoods. The Sprawl is a necessary cultural analysis for understanding who we are as a nation and what we will become.” —Lyz Lenz
“Jason Diamond instinctively understands how the American suburb has shaped the American psyche, somehow both softening and igniting it—he sees the depravity and ennui that Cheever immortalized, but also the odd beauty of mowed lawns and food courts and paved driveways. A child of the suburbs myself, I devoured this smart, probing, and deeply human meditation on what it means to be promised comfort, and what it feels like to tear yourself apart trying to escape it.” —Amanda Petrusich
“By weaving a history of the suburbs with his own experiences and an in-depth look at their role in culture, Diamond shows that resentment of the suburbs is what makes them worth appreciating. He points out the once-bright and shining American Dream of owning a single-family home evolved into something else: sprawl.” —Madeline Bilis, Apartment Therapy
“Piercing and melancholy. . . . Diamond looks back on his suburban upbringing with a profound mixture of pride and shame that you’ll surely recognize if you grew up there, too.” —Rob Harvilla, The Ringer
“The suburbs, with their strip malls and IHOPs and quiet nights, are for Diamond redolent both of nostalgia and terror. . . . The question is whether this new generation is going to recreate the suburban culture of America’s long-gone boom times, or aim for something else.” —Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic
Searching for John Hughes (November, 2016 on HarperCollins/William Morrow) is my first book.
“Tells a heartbreaking story of restless youth, imposter syndrome, and the movies that help him make sense of it all...Makes me want to tell my parents and children how much I love them...and then curl up on the couch and watch The Breakfast Club.” (Emma Straub, author of the New York Times bestsellers Modern Lovers and The Vacationers)
“With geniality, humor and charm, Diamond explores the ways in which cinematic fantasy can influence, overshadow, and help us to escape reality. This book is for anyone playing out an eternal adolescence.” (Melissa Broder, author of So Sad Today)
“Jason Diamond writes with equal parts wit and candor about what happens when life diverges wildly from the suburban fairytales made popular by John Hughes. Diamond passionately conveys how lovely it is when we find less cinematic but harder earned happy endings on our own terms.” (Maris Kreizman, author of Slaughterhouse 90210)
“Oh look, it’s all my favorite things in one book: Chicago, New York City, punk rock, food, and existential crises...Bittersweet, charming and hilarious...details the longing and struggle of an aspiring writer with clarity, wit, and heart.” (Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Middlesteins and Saint Mazie)
“Both funny and heartbreaking, Diamond’s memoir is not just an account of how one director’s films impacted-and perhaps saved-his life. It is also a memorable reflection on what it means to let go of the past and grow up. A quirkily intelligent memoir of finding oneself in movies.” (Kirkus Reviews)