If He Hadn't Died Young, Writer David Rakoff Would Have Turned 53 Today

by Christopher FrizzelleHe wrote in The Stranger about going on book tour—specifically "the simultaneous desire for approval and the wish to disappear entirely." Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Happy David Rakoff's birthday, everyone. The unbelievably funny, charming, gay, smart, Jewish, Canadian writer of books like Half Empty and Don't Get Too Comfortable died of cancer in 2010, at the age of 47. In 2002, Rakoff was on a book tour and came through town. The Stranger commissioned him to review