Rothbart amplifies his failings in ways that keep them recognizable yet make them arresting as stories. “My Heart” is a book of small but keen observations, and it’s refreshing to see a ...

The love of Davy Rothbart’s life is a character from Allison Anders’ 1992 film “Gas Food Lodging.” Shade, played by Fairuza Balk, is the wan and ephemerally beautiful daughter of a New ...

When Rothbart was first introduced to the Sanford family, he was sleeping on a friend’s couch in Southeast Washington, D.C. While playing basketball at a nearby court, he met Smurf, a local drug ...

Davey Rothbart begins this collection with an account of teasing his deaf mother with prank calls (including a special request for Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies). It may be intended as ...

Rothbart, who grew up watching formative documentaries at the State Theatre and Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, was just out of college from the University of Michigan when he moved to D.C. in 1999.

Ann Arbor native Davy Rothbart – Community High grad, writer, Found Magazine founder, and “This American Life” contributor – is the kind of guy who climbs into a car with his friend ...

Farrar, Straus and Giroux; $25. Substitute Dr. Dre for Charlie Parker, and Davy Rothbart’s new collection of 16 essays—the brilliantly titled My Heart Is an Idiot —reads like early Jack Kerouac.

Rothbart was exposed to standup from an early age. His father started taking him to comedy clubs when he was just 12. “Later, at college, when I was super-depressed, I tried standup,” he recalls.