THE MATCH THROUGH HISTORY

Nelligan creates dating profiles for some of history’s most eligible singles in this comic debut.

Ever wonder what it would be like if Cleopatra had a dating profile? What about Aristotle, Joan of Arc, or Johann Sebastian Bach? Nelligan provides exactly that in this collection of 21 speculative profiles of figures from antiquity to today. It’s all here: pics, likes, dislikes, and fun facts (“Most spontaneous thing I’ve done?” Catherine the Great asks, answering, “Invaded Austria”). The author imagines a unique voice for each person as they try to put their best foot forward. The buttoned-up Napoleon Bonaparte writes, “I am tall, fit and I receive tremendous satisfaction working with my clients in maximizing high-performing real estate portfolios focused mostly on the Continent.” Other profiles introduce readers to the private lives of Emily Dickinson, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, Cher, and others. Nelligan even imagines these personas matching and texting with one another, so readers can see the chemistry in pairings such as, for example, Eleanor Roosevelt and Henry David Thoreau. As previewed by the book’s title, Nelligan shows that he has a playful relationship to language. He parodies the peculiar dictions of LinkedIn, Reddit, magazine profiles, and, of course, the voices—real or imagined—of his notable subjects, such as former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka: “When you’ve been in as many locker-rooms as Iron Mike you know damn fast there are two types of men in this world: Mamas boys and winners.” If readers are charmed by the notion of reading Ditka’s profile, they’ll likely enjoy the rest of the book, whose overall concept has promise. Indeed, there are a handful of laughs to be had—Nelligan is at his strongest when captioning photos of his various subjects—but they are less numerous than the groans. For most readers, the joke will wear thin very quickly, and some items, such as a conversation between Biggie Smalls and Virginia Woolf (“Yo Ginnie, Biggie up in your crib. Sheezy, what’s a nice ‘ho like you doin’ on a funky app like ‘dis?!”), are unlikely to amuse anyone.

A largely unnecessary book of fake dating profiles for lovers of dad jokes.