I'm laughing because I'm crying A memoir

In Mayer's eyes, humor in the face of life's cruelty is a defining feature of Korean culture. It was one of her main coping mechanisms during childhood and helped her launch a second career as a comedian and performer. Mayer runs through her family legacy and modern Korean history with a blunt, edgy tone more suited to stand-up--punchlines that could be invigorated from the energy of a live performance often fall short. Though she analyzes some of the major historical trends that shaped her family and Korean society as a whole--namely the 20th century Japanese and American occupations--her conclusions often lean on standard platitudes. The memoir works best when she lasers in on the quirks and coping mechanisms that make up her specific family relationships. Indeed, the most compelling insights come from Mayer's young adult life, as her marriage and business partnership coincide with the rise of social media and foodie culture. For readers searching for Asian memoirs, Mayer offers a useful and accessible viewpoint.

Comedian Mayer blends wit and wisdom in this charming account of growing up biracial in Korea and Saipan, raising a child alone in New York City, and coming to terms with the damages of generational trauma. She begins with an account of her maternal Korean family, from her great-grandmother's late-19th-century kidnapping by a bachelor (in a Joseon-era custom called bossam) to a rundown of the gallows humor instilled in her mother and grandfather as the family adapted to life in post-colonial Korea. From there, Mayern moves on to her own difficult childhood, characterized by her white father's depression and her mother's resentment. After getting an abortion at 20 and realizing the pregnancy brought her "dangerously close to a life of whatever the fuck this was," Mayer fled Saipan for San Francisco in the 2000s, where she did sex work and gradually built a life for herself. In sharp-witted prose, she describes starting a family in New York City, leaving her partner, and pursuing her moonshot dream of becoming a stand-up comedian, framing each step as a move away from inherited cycles of hurt. Throughout, she's unsparing but refreshingly empathetic, especially toward her parents. This heralds the arrival of a promising new voice. Agent: Jessica Mileo, InkWell Management. (Nov.)

Standup comedian Mayer (host of the podcasts Feeling Asian and Hairy Butthole) debuts with a book that is both a memoir and a critical examination of the legacies of the Korean War, Japanese and American colonialism, rigid patriarchal structures, racism, and capitalism. Arguing that all these themes can be addressed with thorough and radical honesty, Mayer pulls no punches about her kaleidoscopic and wide-ranging lived experiences as a Korean American. Half of her memoir focuses on the stark complexities of life with her family and friends in Korea and Saipan in the '80s and '90s; the other half shows how her life materially changed in the U.S. in the early aughts. Readers may find the book's tone abrasive at first, but as they continue to read, they'll see that this work illustrates how laughing and crying (and writing) can be some of the best strategies for facing even life's bleakest moments. VERDICT Mayer adds a valuable and fresh perspective to the subgenre of coming-of-age memoirs and memoirs about Asian American experiences.--Mark Inchoco

A Korean American stand-up comic, influencer, and podcaster shares her story, and her rage. Early in her provocative and passionate memoir, Mayer explains that she feels she can speak about being Asian with more confidence than other Asian American comics because she was raised in Asia. The daughter of a Korean mother and a white American father, she was born in the U.S., grew up in Seoul and Saipan, then at the age of 20 ran away from her family and her oppressive then-boyfriend, landing first in San Francisco. She met and married the celebrity chef Danny Bowien; moved to New York and had a child; became quite wealthy; lost it all. The best parts of Mayer's memoir are where she explains aspects of Korean history and culture, including painful subjects like the country's relationship with Japan and international adoption. She presents terms and concepts in Hanjul characters as well as in transliteration and vibrantly weaves them into her story: for example,nunchi, which is the Korean way of knowing what you're supposed to do in any situation (her white father did not), andwangtutta, the lowest of losers (herself, at school). It's easy to predict that the woman behind theHairy Butthole podcast is not worried about offending people, and that is certainly true. Whether or not you fall into one of the groups Mayer scorns--white, American, male, rich, Japanese, liberal, and more--buckle your seat belts. She heaps on the generalizations, extreme irony, profanity, and fury. According to her bio, she is "one of the rare comedians working today who has obtained success both on online platforms and in the mainstream," which suggests that lumping people into categories and making proclamations about them works better in stand-up than it does on the page. If you can tolerate the use of words as a blunt instrument, this challenging book has a lot to say. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.