A book that proceeds from a worthy concept but becomes padded and meandering in execution.
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 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
