What exactly did Dave Barry win a Pulitzer for? All I can find is that he won in 1988 for “commentary” but nothing I’ve seen mentions excatly what commentary they are talking about. (At least, not on the first few pages of Google results anyway.)
Was it kind of a general award along the lines of “you’ve written a lot of good articles” or was it for something specific?
The reason I ask is that I find his stuff to be fairly amusing but (and I am not making this up!) it almost seems as if he has turned into a cliche of himself (and wouldn’t “cliches of themselves” be a good name for a rock band?) and I’m just wondering what it was that he made his reputation on.
I thiiiiink it was for a column he wrote dealing with his mom and her death. The column that was submitted that he believed clinched it. I have absolutely no cite for this other than I remember reading a reference to it in one of his books ages ago.
And yeah, I don’t exactly need to buy any of his new stuff. Re-reading his first books gives the same effect.
The columns Barry wrote about his mother and father dying were among the saddest, most poignant and (particularly the column about his father) best written short essays I’ve ever seen.
BadBaby - Thanks. That’s probably what I’m looking for. I’ll see if I can locate that one.
Telemark - Also thanks for that link. I knew it was for commentary, I just didn’t know if it was anything specific or if it was just for his columns in general. It sounds like they may have given it to him for his writing in general, probably spurred by the column BadBaby mentioned.
kunilou and dinahmoe - Yeah, I know he can do it when he wants to; his 9/11 essay was one of the best I saw. It’s just that when his most interesting column of late involves a giant cheeto, you kind of start wondering what it was that gave him his reputation. Thanks all.
I agree with you tanstaafl, Barry has pretty much turned into a cliche. I used to read him religiously and found him to be hilarious. Ever since the “Dave’s World” show I just lost interest.
I do have a book of his columns that I truly find side-splitting. It also contains the essay about the death of his father, entitled “A Million Words”. His best work, ever.
I believe some Pulitizers are awarded for bodies of work in a year, not just for specific pieces or articles. “Commentary” is one, “Criticism” is another.
I’m 99% sure it was for the commentary dealing with his mothers death.
Dave Barry is interesting, because he writes a million random mostly been there done that type columns about boogers and stuff.
Then when truely inspired, will write an absolutely amazing piece. So I know he’s still got it. I think his humor ideas are probably just running a little dry.
I’ve seen bunches of Dave Barry pieces where he makes fun of his own alleged habit of writing booger jokes, but in all the time I’ve read his stuff, I’ve only encountered one actual booger joke - he informed his son that he is unlike Puff the Magic Dragon insofar as boogies, not fire, come out of his nose, whereupon his son interrupted the song to ask if Little Jackie Paper got boogies in his nose too.
He comments about making booger jokes much more than he actually makes booger jokes. I believe that when he talks about “booger” jokes, it’s actually a metaphor for “jokes that involve some type of bathroom humor or the type of gag that appeals to stereotypical men and immature boys.” However, as that is a very unwieldily phrase, “booger jokes” gets the point across quite nicely.
I remember. His piece on visiting Hiroshima was so powerful, in fact, that when it appeared in Dave Barry Does Japan, the pages it was on had a shaded border.