Hello! I’m Tito Aznar for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2025 Spring Read. Family shapes us in ways we don’t always recognize at first. Family gives us our first ideas about success, love, failure, and identity. Sometimes, it supports us; other times, it feels like a weight we’re constantly trying to push against. In What’s So Funny?, David Sipress explores his complicated relationship with family—especially his parents—and how their expectations, anxieties, and contradictions influenced his life and career. His story is a reminder that family is a source of love and frustration, pressure and inspiration, disappointment and comedy, all tangled together.
From the start, it’s clear that Sipress grew up in a family with a very specific definition of success. His father, a self-made jeweler, had a clear vision for what his children’s future should look like, and for his son, it did not involve cartooning. His mother, while more emotionally available, also carried deep anxieties about how her son’s life would turn out. The message Sipress received was clear: success meant stability, prestige, and financial security, all the things being a cartoonist probably wouldn’t bring.
But for a kid who loved to draw and joke around, this definition of success didn’t quite fit. Like so many people growing up in high-expectation households, Sipress found himself caught between wanting to follow his passion and wanting to make his family proud. This tension between personal dreams and family expectations is something many readers can relate to. Whether it’s art, music, writing, or any unconventional career path, there’s always that fear of disappointing our parents.
Sipress’ father looms large in the memoir. Sipress presents his father as a complex figure, someone who genuinely believed he was guiding his son toward a better life but, in doing so, dismissed what truly made his son happy. Even as Sipress struggled with his father’s disapproval, there’s an underlying need for his approval, a hope that maybe, one day, his father would see the value in what he did. Readers can certainly connect with this idea--that emotional push and pull at the heart of many parent-child relationships.
What’s So Funny? doesn’t end with some grand resolution. There’s no dramatic reconciliation, no moment in which Sipress’ father finally declares, You were right all along, son! Instead, the author comes to terms with the fact that family relationships are rarely that simple. Yes, his father never fully understood his career, and yes, his mother’s anxiety often weighed on him, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t love. Sipress shows us that family is not just about approval--family is about influence, for better or worse. Even when his parents didn’t understand him, they shaped him. Their expectations gave him something to push against, their anxieties gave him something to joke about, and their presence—however complicated—gave him something to reflect on.
At its heart, What’s So Funny? is about learning to navigate the contradictions of family. It’s about recognizing that love and frustration can coexist, that approval isn’t always necessary for success, and that sometimes, the very things that drive us crazy about our families are the things that make us who we are. I’m Tito Aznar for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.
