Mixing memoir with manifesto, a veteran comic argues that when comedians’ freedom of speech is threatened, the whole culture suffers.
It’s terrifying out there right now for stand-ups,” warns Gold at the beginning of this funny yet scattershot book. With a president threatened by humor—and who considers it an enemy along with the expression of free speech in general—the author proceeds to show how cancel culture, social media campaigns, trigger warnings, thin skins, and what she clearly sees as the downside of political correctness have made comedians fear for their careers if they say anything that happens to offend anyone. “The best comedy lives on the edge of what’s acceptable,” she writes. “Jokes are nourished by tension; laughter is a release. Sharing laughs with others creates a sort of nonthreatening intimacy that increases our identification with one another.” True enough, but Gold’s argument needs a tighter focus and a sharper edge. The author delivers more of a rambling sprawl than most comedians would attempt onstage, mixing reminiscences of what it was like to grow up tall, Jewish, and gay with lists of comics who have challenged convention, along with page after page of some of their bits. Many of those bits work better than Gold’s own writing here, which could have benefitted from a stronger edit. Her tributes to heroes such as Lenny Bruce (“the Jesus Christ of the First Amendment as it relates to comedy”) and Joan Rivers (“my idol…the funniest and most fearless of women”) give credit where it’s due, and her relating of the price paid by comedians who have run afoul of the culture police is correct in its suggestion of overreaction. However, she fails to offer more of a prescription than “Lighten up, people!” Eventually, her argument loses steam.
A book that proceeds from a worthy concept but becomes padded and meandering in execution.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-295375-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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Bestselling author Haig offers a book’s worth of apothegms to serve as guides to issues ranging from disquietude to self-acceptance.
Like many collections of this sort—terse snippets of advice, from the everyday to the cosmic—some parts will hit home with surprising insight, some will feel like old hat, and others will come across as disposable or incomprehensible. Years ago, Haig experienced an extended period of suicidal depression, so he comes at many of these topics—pain, hope, self-worth, contentment—from a hard-won perspective. This makes some of the material worthy of a second look, even when it feels runic or contrary to experience. The author’s words are instigations, hopeful first steps toward illumination. Most chapters are only a few sentences long, the longest running for three pages. Much is left unsaid and left up to readers to dissect. On being lost, Haig recounts an episode with his father when they got turned around in a forest in France. His father said to him, “If we keep going in a straight line we’ll get out of here.” He was correct, a bit of wisdom Haig turned to during his depression when he focused on moving forward: “It is important to remember the bottom of the valley never has the clearest view. And that sometimes all you need to do in order to rise up again is to keep moving forward.” Many aphorisms sound right, if hardly groundbreaking—e.g., a quick route to happiness is making someone else happy; “No is a good word. It keeps you sane. In an age of overload, no is really yes. It is yes to having space you need to live”; “External events are neutral. They only gain positive or negative value the moment they enter our mind.” Haig’s fans may enjoy this one, but others should take a pass.
A handful of pearls amid a pile of empty oyster shells.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-14-313666-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin Life
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Categories: BODY, MIND & SPIRIT | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | SELF-HELP | GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not an easy read but an essential one.
18
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Title notwithstanding, this latest from the National Book Award–winning author is no guidebook to getting woke.
In fact, the word “woke” appears nowhere within its pages. Rather, it is a combination memoir and extension of Atlantic columnist Kendi’s towering Stamped From the Beginning (2016) that leads readers through a taxonomy of racist thought to anti-racist action. Never wavering from the thesis introduced in his previous book, that “racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas,” the author posits a seemingly simple binary: “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” The author, founding director of American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, chronicles how he grew from a childhood steeped in black liberation Christianity to his doctoral studies, identifying and dispelling the layers of racist thought under which he had operated. “Internalized racism,” he writes, “is the real Black on Black Crime.” Kendi methodically examines racism through numerous lenses: power, biology, ethnicity, body, culture, and so forth, all the way to the intersectional constructs of gender racism and queer racism (the only section of the book that feels rushed). Each chapter examines one facet of racism, the authorial camera alternately zooming in on an episode from Kendi’s life that exemplifies it—e.g., as a teen, he wore light-colored contact lenses, wanting “to be Black but…not…to look Black”—and then panning to the history that informs it (the antebellum hierarchy that valued light skin over dark). The author then reframes those received ideas with inexorable logic: “Either racist policy or Black inferiority explains why White people are wealthier, healthier, and more powerful than Black people today.” If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. When he began college, “anti-Black racist ideas covered my freshman eyes like my orange contacts.” This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory.
Not an easy read but an essential one.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-50928-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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