Instruct: Classify a given review as either positive or negative.
Query: Self-absorbed, self-indulgent, unfunny whine-fest

This book is several things. One thing it is NOT is funny. Blount worries that, having attained the age of 55, he is experiencing some sort of humorist's change of life and is no longer capable of evoking guffaws. Well, then, this book is a self-fulfilling prophesy. In the process, we get to squirm through such incessent dissing of his mother that we want to turn our heads in embarrassment; so much what-did-I-do-wrong whining about lost loves that we're inclined to "card" him to see if he's really past 15; and yet more tired and feeble attempts at what, I suppose, is to pass for "Southern humor." If this is the best we're to expect from Blount as he flounders through middle age, he ought to confine himself to his periodic appearances with Garrison Keillor, reading jokes sent in by people who know what "funny" really is.