Short Synopsis
The riotous, tender story of a bookish Mississippi boy and his flawed, Bunyanesque father, told with the comic verve of David Sedaris and the deft satire of Mark Twain or Roy Blount, Jr.

Full Synopsis
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father—a hunter, a fighter, a football coach, "a man better suited to living in a remote frontier wilderness of the nineteenth century than contemporary America, with all its progressive ideas, and paved roads, and lack of armed duels. He was a great man, and he taught me many things: how to fight, how to work, how to cheat, how to pray to Jesus about it, how to kill things with guns and knives and, if necessary, with hammers."

Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not: an actor, a Presbyterian, and a doctor of philosophy. But when it was time to settle down and start a family of his own, Harrison started to view his father in a new light, and realized—for better and for worse—how much of his old man he'd absorbed.

Sly, heartfelt, and tirelessly hilarious, The World's Largest Man is an unforgettable memoir.

"Consistently seasoned with laughs, this memoir is adroitly warm and deep when it is called for. An uncommonly entertaining story replete with consistent wit and lethal weaponry." ---Kirkus Starred Review

“Funny as well as tender.” ---New York Times

“Ever the raconteur, Key fills this rollicking memoir with tales of growing up with a larger-than-life father and being raised in the country, where boys would learn to fish and hunt and farm.” ---Publishers Weekly

“It reads like fiction that is too crazy to be anything but truth. Fans of memoir, personal essays, and humor writing will devour this in one sitting.” ---Library Journal

Kirkus Review