"It's hard to overstate just how funny Daniel Lavery is. He's spent many years spreading Ayn Rand parodies, Jane Eyre texts, and Shatner musings across the internet like an extremely clever dandelion loosing its seeds to the wind. This books maintains that humor and mastery of language, and the literary and pop culture references are still there—they're everywhere, rapid-fire, you know, like dandelion seeds—is this still a good metaphor?—but the heart of the book is the complex, difficult, euphoric subject of transition. Specifically Daniel's transition, although trans and gender-nonconforming people everywhere will probably find something to relate to here. What a joy to spend some time in the world as he sees it: everything significant, everything shot through with meaning and hard-earned revelation. I am not the same person on the other side of this book, or I am exactly the same person but more so. One of the two."
Publisher Atria Books
Publication Date 2020-02-11
Section New Hardcover - Nonfiction / Essays / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9781982105211
Named one of the most anticipated books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, O, The Oprah Magazine, BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, Yahoo Lifestyle, and Bitch Media
“A delightful hybrid of a book… Youll laugh, you'll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
From the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and The Merry Spinster, writer of Slate’s “Dear Prudence” column, and cofounder of The Toast comes a hilarious and stirring collection of essays and cultural observations spanning pop culture—from the endearingly popular to the staggeringly obscure.
Daniel Mallory Ortberg is known for blending genres, forms, and sources to develop fascinating new hybrids—from lyric rants to horror recipes to pornographic scripture. In his most personal work to date, he turns his attention to the essay, offering vigorous and laugh-out-loud funny accounts of both popular and highbrow culture while mixing in meditations on gender transition, family dynamics, and the many meanings of faith.
From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, Nora Ephron, Apollo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a hilarious and emotionally exhilarating compendium that combines personal history with cultural history to make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew. It further establishes Ortberg as one of the most innovative and engaging voices of his generation—and it may just change the way you think about Lord Byron forever.
