Don't Be a Dick, Pete
Pete Heritage is a dick.
Pete Heritage is my younger brother.
Pete Heritage is training for an Iron Man, and knows exactly what exercise he’ll be doing on any given day between now and August.
Pete Heritage has only ever lived in the town he was born in.
(I have not).
Pete Heritage drives a BMW.
(I cannot drive).
Every time I meet him, Pete Heritage asks me when I’m going to learn to drive.
(I tell him I have no immediate plans).
Until recently, Pete Heritage owned three homes.
(I have never owned a home in my life).
Pete Heritage is convinced that I am the favourite son.
(Am I?)”
Don’t Be a Dick, Pete is a biography of Pete Heritage, the general manager of a department store on England’s southeastern coast, who also happens to be Stuart’s little brother. More than that, it’s a book about family – family structures, sons, fathers, fatherhood, relationships and how hard it is to create your own identity within a system that’s loaded with several decades of preconceived ideas about you.
Tracking the last year or so of his life where Stuart has recently married, had a baby, and moved back to his hometown – and closer to Pete – Don’t Be a Dick, Pete explores what it means to be a modern male.
Reviews
A fun, witty, boisterous look at what it means to be a brother, to share that history and to make memories... A nice break from the ‘traditional’ biographic fare.<br />
I have every confidence that every person I know is going to love this book. I can’t imagine anyone reading this book and not being in love with it. Stuart Heritage is incomparable in terms of his voice and the observational lens through which he sees things… In fact, no one writes about the incidentals and the characteristics of British life better than him.
I loved it so much I read it in one fell swoop. Fantastically funny but also so touching.
A memoir focusing on fraternal ties, it is an unconventionally uproarious take on what it is like to have a brother whom you love, but, oddly, have absolutely nothing in common with.
