Self-help book 'Bastards' provides advice for rejection

By Corinne Minard, Staff Writer

October 8, 2007 | 1:21 p.m.

Mel Helitzer’s “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down: 101 Strategies to Laugh Your Way from Repudiation to Happiness” is a self-help book that goes beyond constraints of its category by offering funny advice that can apply to people in all stations of life.

Helitzer, a journalism professor at Ohio University who was named “one of the funniest university professors in the country” by Rolling Stone Magazine, takes the self-help book and makes it less of a chore to read by turning it into something resembling fun. But don’t let the fun title fool you. This is definitely a self-help book.

The book, which was published by University Sports Press, revolves around society’s fear of rejection and how to handle it, possibly even transforming it into a positive thing. While this could be the most boring thing on the planet (it’s a book about rejection, after all), Helitzer instead infuses the book with a sense of humor about itself and its topic.

Instead of offering strange and unusual ways to better oneself as a person, Helitzer offers practical (and impractical) ways to suck it up. He points out that rejection is a regular part of life. Learning how to handle rejection, and possibly use it to improve your life, is the core of the book. Everything is a suggestion in “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down,” not a rule.

Part of the book’s strength lies in the ease with which it can be read. The book is divided into five separate sections: types of rejection, ways to avoid rejection, positive actions to take after rejection, actions to not take after rejection and benefits from rejection. These sections are split into subtopics, each with a length no more than one page. The subtopics are split into different parts, each with separate headings, too. While this extreme splitting can make a straight read through of “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” annoying, it makes skimming easier and allows the reader to pick the information that matters most to him or her. It also helps that every other page is literally a comic, making the book’s 280 pages seem less daunting.

While the advice alone is rarely funny, Helitzer creates a comical atmosphere by adding funny anecdotes of his own and others. Almost a hundred stories of rejection from known celebrities are used to show that everyone experiences rejection, including the rich and the beautiful. Quotes from comedians are also interspersed throughout the book, offering humor on everything from not getting that promotion to depression. Because of his comedic tone, the advice doesn’t feel preachy and the idea of being denied doesn’t seem so bad.

What makes “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” special, though, is that it speaks to people of any age and profession by offering different advice for each demographic. The section on starting a business may seem useless to a collegiate journalism major, but this is valuable advice to someone who is launching a business. There’s advice for students, parents, business professionals, the retired and even children. At least one section is useful to each group.

For example, the suggestion of taking a cruise after a big rejection is incomprehensible to the poor, loan-riddled student, but it is something an exhausted middle-class parent could do.

By varying the types of rejection and comical advice to handle it, Helitzer makes “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” a self-help book that all can use, not just bored housewives.

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Buy “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down: 101 Strategies to Laugh Your Way from Repudiation to Happiness” from Amazon.

It is also available at several bookstores in Athens.