I know I’m not the only person to have been blown away by Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette and Douglas shows. I don’t remember in which she explains that in order to tell a joke, the comic must first create tension, and then release it, but I did think about that over and over while reading Samantha Irby’s essay collection, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
This essay collection meanders a world where one can unapologetically love the things that others term “guilty pleasures.” Irby has no guilt about her love of eating in her apartment alone, watching endless television, and spending money on things she cannot afford. Even writing that in simple, declarative makes it sound as though I’m casting judgment, when in reality, I’m doing the exact opposite: I’m in awe of how Irby, interlacing stories of a childhood that proved at times to be lonely, violent, and heart-wrenching and a present with a constant undercurrent of pain due to a chronic disease can belie humor, understanding, self-righteous selfishness and empathetic selflessness in just a handful of sentences. Her unique humor and unflappable knowledge and understanding of her desires makes her an addictive narrator, and her voice leads us through this stalwartly funny collection in the blink of an eye. It’s brutally honest and laugh-out-loud hilarious, and we need more of both things, these days.