Let's Pretend This Never Happened

March 12, 2012
In punchy chapters that cover a fairly uneventful life in the southern Republican regions, blogger Lawson achieves an exaggerated sarcasm that occasionally attains a belly laugh from the reader (“I grew up a poor black girl in New York. Except replace ’black’ with ’white’ and ’New York’ with ’rural Texas’ ”), but mostly descends into rants about bodily functions and dead animals spiced with profanity. The daughter of a taxidermist whose avid foraging and hunting filled their “violently rural” Wall, Tex., house with motley creatures like raccoons and turkeys and later triggered some anxiety disorder, Lawson did not transcend her childhood horrors so much as return to them, marrying at age 22 a fellow student at a local San Angelo college, Victor, and settling down in the town with a job in “HR” while Victor worked “in computers.” In random anecdotal segments Lawson treats the vicissitudes of her 15-year marriage, the birth of daughter Hailey after many miscarriages, some funny insider secrets from the HR office, and an attempt to learn to trust women by spending a weekend in California wine country with a group of bloggers. With little substantive writing on these subjects, however, Lawson’s puerile sniggering and potty mouth gets old fast. Agent: Neeti Madan, Sterling Lord.

Starred review from May 28, 2012
In this sarcastic and sidesplitting memoir, blogger and journalist Jenny Lawson—famous for her persona, the Bloggess—describes her childhood in Wall, Tex., her experiences with marriage and motherhood, and how she became a mature adult (sort of). Lawson fans will love listening to the author recounting her life in her own voice, from getting her arm stuck up a cow’s vagina to her first acid trip and misinterpretation of her husband’s marriage proposal as a murder attempt. Listeners unfamiliar with Lawson’s style may grow tired of her profanity and, at times, over-the-top attempts at derisive humor, but even her biggest critics will find themselves giggling when her taxidermist father throws a bobcat into her future husband’s lap. From the start (and the title), Lawson admits to embellishing details of her life, but her West Texas accent adds a sweet authenticity to her tall tales. She also touches on serious topics, such as her series of miscarriages and severe anxiety disorder, softening her delivery to fit the material. And Lawson knows her material so well that her performance seems more like a standup than traditional narration, making this audiobook both entertaining and engaging. A Putnam/Amy Einhorn hardcover.