DOES THIS MAKE ME FUNNY?

Personal essays on the miseries, catastrophes, obstacles—and some joys—of being Zosia.

In the acknowledgments of her debut essay collection (she previously edited an anthology called My First Popsicle), Mamet reveals that her Pulitzer-winning playwright father counseled her never to read reviews of her own work because you remember only the bad ones. So she may never know that this review has some nice things to say about her book. About two-thirds of the essays are about being completely miserable as an adolescent and young adult, constantly struggling with “fears that I would never make it as an actress, that I would never be skinny enough to love, that I’d never escape the prison of high school, or anorexia, or my own mind.” These problems will be completely relatable to many readers, and her treatment of them is funny and moving. The more jaded will have read much on these topics in the past, but will join the fangirls in cheering when she delivers the satisfaction of also writing about finding a great love and a true best friend and, most distinctively, the hair-raising process of finding her place in the acting world. The best essay in the book is the one nobody but her could write—about playing Shoshanna on Girls. It’s very close to the end, and contains some of the best descriptions of acting since Al Pacino’s Sonny Boy. “Zosia went offline to make space for Shosh to take over for that period of time. She came out of me as if she had been a part of me forever, lying dormant just waiting for her time to arrive when she could come alive.” She concludes by saying she will never stop missing her, imagines her character’s life continuing somewhere, “a speed-talking energizer bunny who loves pink and is more than likely running a Fortune 500 company and on her second marriage to a highly successful fund manager.”

Generally lovable, with several standout moments.