Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind by Nate Bargatze. Grand Central Publishing. 232 pages. 2025
***

If you enjoy the comedy of Nate Bargatze, you’ll enjoy this book, his first. I listened to the audiobook edition, which was read by Bargatze, and I would recommend that version to you as he reads it with his deadpan, self-deprecating delivery.
This light-hearted book has Bargatze telling stories about McDonald’s, shopping, his family, his barber, who is also his trainer, dogs, his car named “Old Blue”, his best friend Pee Pee, his wife Laura and daughter Harper, his unfailing love of Vanderbilt University football (who will never win the national championship), and his father, who was a magician and still opens Nate’s shows. He tells us about growing up in a small town in Tennessee, where you could never say the “F-word” in his home (no, not that “F-word”), his poor performance in college, living in a rat-infested apartment in Chicago as he learned standup comedy, and playing basketball in the NBA (no, not that NBA). The book includes blank pages, and random food thoughts. Throughout the book, Bargatze makes reference to his and his family’s Christian faith.

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