Review by New York Times Review
UNTIL RECENTLY I was an audiobook virgin. Oh, I suppose there was an ear half-cocked as LibriVox recordings of "Alice in Wonderland" aired during long car trips for the children, a respite from the Lord God Our iPad, but I was hardly paying attention. My virginity has now been taken from me - forcefully, though not disagreeably - by Amy Schumer: the 35-year-old comedian who parlayed a surge of showbiz success into a publishing deal with Simon & Schuster worth many millions of dollars more than one she had canceled with HarperCollins. Schumer is not shy, but rather an introvert, she stresses in the ensuing product: an insouciant mélange of memoir and feminist treatise that commences with an open letter to her vagina. This is a boundary previously breached by Nancy Friday ("My Secret Garden"), Eve Ensler and Naomi Wolf. Bold women, they were hardly tiptoeing through the tulips, but Schumer is more of a gleeful trampler. On better days her genitalia smell of "a small barnyard animal," perhaps "a freshly washed goat or something of that size and potency," she shares during one graphic account of a sexual encounter; on worse ones, "an unwashed shark tank." Her suitors' nether parts are not spared scrutiny either, and while she regularly performs such material before crowds of thousands, there's a special quality to hearing her "work blue" - flaming blue - in the confidential tones of a new friend huddled next to you on a pleather couch. In short, and it is long (though broken up by neo-Nietzschean epigrams, interludes and annotated journal entries), "The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo" is about as suitable for minors as the waning days of the 2016 presidential election were. And possibly more topical, including an exhortation for gun control impelled by the murder of two women at a screening of Schumer's movie "Trainwreck" in Lafayette, La., last year, There are also cautionary tales about domestic violence and bodily trespass while under the influence (her term for not-quite-rape is "grape") and a nod to the modern choose-your-own-gender adventure. "Whatever she does will be fine," Schumer says of her 2-year-old niece during a segment about her own penchant for stuffed animals. "Or he. Damn, it's hard to write a book and not get yelled at." Most of the issues addressed by the author, however, are not the Republic's but her own. Money! (After reduced circumstances in childhood following the failure of the family business, young Amy enlisted her little sister in a spree of grand larceny; she now freely gives away six-figure checks.) Mommy! (The senior Ms. Schumer used sign language to announce to her older daughter that she had fallen in love with a schoolmate's father.) And looming as he tends to do in a woman's life, Daddy, a onetime party animal who built Amy's confidence during body surfs in the Atlantic but has long suffered from multiple sclerosis, the scatological debilitation of which is not elided here. Despite admissions of binge-eating and heavy drinking - on occasion boxed wine through a straw - Schumer herself seems afflicted mostly with what she calls "the disease of being a comic." At least it is a well-managed case. A dissolute, flaky, noisy persona may have made Amy famous, but underneath are fierce loyalty and enviable discipline, conveyed in a librarian's hush. But will she have the enduring appeal of Carol Burnett? Could anybody? TWO GENERATIONS BEFORE Amy Schumer, Carol Burnett began down and out in a one-room Hollywood apartment with her grandmother Nanny, longing to star on Broadway, which she pronounces on her new audiobook in a way that lets the listener visualize the white lights popping on. She does not describe bedding dudes, but falling asleep while performing in the original production of "Once Upon a Mattress." Folksy without being prissy, Burnett has already written three memoirs, including a tribute to her eldest daughter, Carrie, who died of cancer at 38. This one is more of a Thanksgiving, to the cheerleaders and collaborators on her most successful vehicle, "The Carol Burnett Show." It was broadcast for over a decade by Bill Paley's CBS, going off the air before Comedy Central's "Inside Amy Schumer" was even a licentious gleam in a cable TV executive's eyes. While I greatly enjoy Schumer's sketch comedy when pals hurl it to me in YouTube links, I must admit that Burnett's used to be appointment television, when that regal hour of self-indulgence still existed. She reminded me cozily of a family friend who had forgotten to put the top on the blender when making pumpkin-pie filling, and her subjects included some favorite literary classics. "Rebecky," after Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca," with Mrs. Danvers's ominous ubiquity mocked by her head popping up after the dome was lifted on a silver serving dish. "Went With the Wind," after Margaret Mitchell, with "Starlett O'Hara" appearing in a dress by Bob Mackie incorporating a curtain rod. "I saw it in the window and I just couldn't resist it." Not rape jokes but drape jokes; not parodies but spoofs orchestrated by a self-described kook that were a goof and a hoot. Burnett's well-loved voice can sound a little wooden reminiscing about "back in the covered wagon days," as she calls them, but it's the creaky, comforting wood of a favorite Shaker rocking chair, greased with salvaged audio of the supporting players Vicki Lawrence (her young doppelgänger), Harvey Korman and the zany Tim Conway. Explained is the somewhat routinized process of putting out a variety show, back in a brass age of them that somehow stretched to accommodate both Dean Martin and the Muppets. Burnett's schedule allowed her to catch "All My Children" at lunch hour and be home for dinner with her children at 6:30 on the nights she wasn't taking guest stars out to Chasen's. She made the entire A-list do cartwheels, with the exception of Joan Crawford, who tolerated "Mildred Fierce" but not "Torchy Song." In between a Who's Who of that era in entertainment, Burnett slips some reflection about what it meant to be a female comic then, having to act besotted with her handsome announcer and soft-pedaling direction to the male writing staff. "I would somehow find a way to ease into expressing an opinion and still be 'ladylike,' thus avoiding being a 'bitch,'" she says ruefully, And later: "I was totally nonconfrontational. Actually, you could say I was chicken." But this is poppycock. Burnett was a brave pioneer of prime time who enabled women like Schumer to go forth and scramble the very concept. And though only one of their narratives is suitable for playing to the children, the fact is they are both Alices in Wonderland, through the looking glass, flabbergasted at living their dreams. There's a special quality to hearing Schumer 'work blue' in the confidential tones of a friend huddled next to you on the couch. ALEXANDRA JACOBS, an editor for the Styles sections of The Times, is writing a biography of Elaine Stritch.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 13, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
One of Schumer's recurring bits as a comic and performer, who writes and stars in her own TV series, Inside Amy Schumer, is that she's a consummate oversharer who leaves little to the imagination. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that her book, besides being laugh-out-loud funny, is also pretty daringly personal. (Schumer's introductory note to readers is quickly followed with An Open Letter to My Vagina.) It will come as a surprise that she's an introvert, that she had a storied career as a teenage shoplifter, that she's never, ever going to live in L.A., and that there are still 44 other things readers won't know about her, all handily gathered in the chapter, Things You Don't Know About Me, in case you wanted to skip ahead but don't.If, somehow, George Carlin were to come up with an updated list of, say, 15 words you can never say on television, they would probably all be in here, and there's lots of, well, sex stuff from the writer whose comedy special was called Mostly Sex Stuff, but many of the I can't believe she wrote that are provoked by heavy things, too. She's candid about her dad's multiple sclerosis, the abusive relationship she couldn't pry herself from in her early twenties, and the bummer that was the international press tour following the release of the successful movie she wrote and starred in, Trainwreck. The moment she learned that two women died in a shooting at a showing of the film is tied for the worst in her life, and precipitated her fervent interest in speaking up for stricter gun control.Schumer is obviously grateful for her success and its spoils, but she makes it clear how hard she's worked for it all, which is in itself refreshing. This is one woman's paean to comedy (standup remains her favorite part of what she does), hard work, and, boldly, herself. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This book, and the multimillion-dollar advance Schumer received, have been buzzed about for ages. Readers are primed.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In her first book, the Emmy Award-winning comedian offers an entertaining and eclectic collection of 30-plus essays, including "An Open Letter to My Vagina" and "Forgiving My Lower Back Tattoo." Her prose, like her popular comedy act, is plucky, forthright, hilariously raunchy-and honest. Though she claims the book is not an autobiography (at the age of 35, Schumer asserts, it's too early to share her life story), readers will learn of her childhood on Long Island, born into "New Money" (her father ran an exclusive baby furniture shop). By the time she's 10, however, challenging times have fallen on the family: the business is lost, her parents eventually divorce, and her beloved alcoholic father is diagnosed with MS. Schumer works various jobs (waitressing, pedicab driver, etc.) but ultimately is true to her passion for inspiring laughter. The book's centerpiece is a comparatively longer essay on her career, revealing the hard work of touring and the dedication, heartaches, missteps, and triumphs on the path to stand-up success. Along with off-the-wall one-liners, anecdotes, and confessions, Schumer shares some solemn experiences, such as bodysurfing with her disabled dad for the last time, and her involvement in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend ("When you're in love with a man who hurts you, it's a special kind of hell, yet one that so many women have experienced"). Amid ill-fated dates, alcohol-induced blackouts, and late-night eating binges, Schumer, in these candid, well-crafted essays, wears her mistakes "like badges of honor." (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Here comedian, actress, and writer Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer; Trainwreck) looks back on her teenage years, her relationship with her parents, her sex life, and her boyfriends. Schumer doesn't hold back, talking about everything from her sexual awakening to the body shaming she experienced; no story is off the table, including experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line or discovering her fitness instructor's secret bad habit. Read by the author, this memoir brings to the table her well-known sass and comedic timing. VERDICT Fans of Schumer will pick this up without hesitation. Readers who enjoy memoirs by strong, opinionated women will want to give this a try as well.-Jessi Brown, Huntington City-Twp. P.L., IN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
