It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive

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A provocative, funny, and whip- smart memoir of how one man learned to find joy in his own life after years of hand-to-hand combat with death.

Actor and author Evan Handler’s new book, It’s Only Temporary, is both a deeply personal memoir and a series of meditations on life, love, faith, gratitude, and mortality. In closely examining his own triumphs, mistakes, and less-than-ideal relationships since his miraculous recovery from a supposedly incurable leukemia more than twenty years ago, Handler zeroes in on the most profound question facing every human being: How can a person live well with the knowledge that time is limited? In doing so, Handler has created a poignant and wildly funny rumination on the ironies of human existence.

Structured as a collection of incisive and probing autobiographical stories , It’s Only Temporaryis a startlingly candid portrait of one man’s struggle to find love and happiness within a life he knows he’s lucky just to have. By turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, blunt and shocking, Handler’s defiantly unconventional memoir ultimately succeeds as both a stirring love story and a classic coming-of-age tale. It’s Only Temporarycelebrates the transformation from boy to man—even if it took Handler more than forty years to get there.
 

Contents

Separation Anxiety
1
Remember Richard Burr
16
The Sickest First Kiss
23
The Biggest Mistake I Ever Made or I Dont
40
Menace to Society
47
My Clock Ticks Too
82
The TwoMonth Second Date
102
You Two Meet?
154
You Dont Know Where You Are Until Youre Somewhere Else
196
On Death and Dying
202
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About the author

Evan Handleris an actor best known as Harry Goldenblatt from HBO’s Sex and the Cityand the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors. Handler currently co-stars in Showtime’s hit series Californicationco-starring David Duchovny. His past acting credits include Lost, The West Wing, Ransom, and Taps. Handler also has written for Elle, Mirabella, O, the Oprah Magazine, USA Weekend, and The New Yorker.

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