I picked up Oh the Glory of it All – a New York Times bestseller – as a cheap, easy read for the long Songkran holiday break. After scanning the comments and description on the cover, I wasn’t expecting much, just something fairly basic to remind me of my home culture (American) while passing time on a Phuket beach lounge chair.

The book is a memoir of thirty-eight-year-old Sean Wilsey, son of once-famed columnist and author-turned-philanthropist Pat Montandon, and multi-millionaire dairy biz tycoon Al Wilsey. Wilsey begins the novel with his perspective on growing up with wealthy, albeit dysfunctional, parents in San Francisco. The reader understands how the author adored his mother; how he fought an uphill battle to earn his father’s acceptance and affection; and how he lapped-up the doting by his mother’s best friend (and later, his stepmother) Dede, during the late 1970s and early 80s.

Early on in the book I couldn’t help but ponder similarities between the author’s San Francisco family life and that of Bangkok’s high-society (hi-so) strata – or, for that matter, any city with a high concentration of wealthy, media-enslaved socialites. Wilsey’s mother and stepmother are portrayed as blatant ‘gold diggers’ and ‘social climbers’. His mother and father are ‘society people’ who savor media attention. Later on, the author’s stepmother (Dede, his mother’s former best friend) also can’t get enough of the limelight, and tells the press she wears a "ruby on one hand and an emerald on the other to play ‘red light green light’ ”.

Upon marrying his father, Wilsey’s stepmother instantly changes from ‘doting friend’ to ‘evil stepmother from hell’. The author’s parents and stepmother seemingly wish for him to mature into a ‘society man’, an identity which he clearly does not fit. It thus appears to be a source for much of the author’s angst and frustration while growing up. Through it all, the author attempts to show the reader that all he wanted from his parents was to be truly loved – something that, due to their narcissism, they never showed nor gave to him.

Wilsey has a sweet sense of humor and a wit that fans of David Sedaris will appreciate. His humor sugar-coats an overall lack of understanding; Wilsey apparently is still in the process of coming to terms with his familial experiences, and himself.

The title of the book comes from Wilsey’s childhood fondness of the phrase ‘Oh the glory of it all’, a phrase which he cites with increasing humor throughout the book, and perhaps is an irony related to his lack of love from his parents:

“ ‘Oh the glory of it all’ was something I said when I was alone and things were glorious … I would only say it when I was alone … It felt like an affirmation of my own identity in the face of my parents’ overwhelming identities. I would say it slowly, drawing it out, when the world was fuller than I thought possible – when I could not contain myself.”

Growing up, Wilsey attends a number of middle schools in the Bay Area, although because of his poor grades, and his father and stepmother’s heartless plots to get rid of him, he is sent to a boarding school in Massachusetts. He is kicked out due to poor grades and sent to another boarding school on the East Coast, one which he is expelled from. His parents then send him to a ‘therapeutic’ boarding school in northern California. The bizarreness of the school forces Wilsey to scheme-up a successful escape. His parents then send him to a ‘cutting edge therapeutic’ boarding school in Italy, which is run by former administrators of the northern California boarding school.