Scharpling is a natural storyteller, with an eye for absurd minutiae, and he brings those talents to bear in the written word just as easily as he does on the radio ... Sincere revelations about the host and writer’s lifelong struggles with depression, suicidal impulses, and the harsh psychiatric treatments he endured in his teenage years all appear ... Scharpling’s nervousness in opening up about these experiences is both palpable and endearing, as he writes honestly about many of the hardest chapters of his life with bracing clarity. If there’s a downside to this rigorous self-examination, it’s that Scharpling’s understandable discomfort with the subject matter—and the sense that he’s trying to work out, on the page, all that has happened to him during his darkest days—also impose a degree of distance on his naturally wry voice. The wit never recedes fully, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that those chapters are for their author first, and the person holding the book second. The paradox, then, is that it sometimes feels like the reader learns more about Tom Scharpling from a chapter in which he recounts his obsession with a Wizard Of Oz arcade machine on the Jersey Shore than from meditations on his mental health. Not because Scharpling’s writing on the heavier stuff isn’t compelling, but because the way he embraces the goofy workings of the coin-pusher game provides such a clear window into the parts of his mind that bring him joy. The Best Show has always been a program predicated on dumb, delightful play, and it’s in the embrace of that spirit—and the showing, not telling—that Scharpling’s memoir really shines.
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