One Man’s Trash! Is Another Man’s Trash

I’ll admit it: I was suckered into reading Simon Pare-Poupart’s memoir about life as a garbage man, Trash!, because Dwight Garner compared the book to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. I love well-written books about workers who provide services that most people don’t ever think about. But Trash! is bad. It’s a macho, cliched, annoying (but mercifully short) book written by an incurious know-it-all. I don’t know what Dwight Garner was thinking when he reviewed this book, but I can tell you that if you do want to read a great tell-all about life on a garbage truck, you should skip Trash! and read Derf Backderf’s excellent graphic memoir Trashed, instead.