The past few days I’ve been walking around the neighborhood looking for all the world like the Village Idiot. That’s what you think when you see a guy all by himself, holding his sides, tears of mirth rolling down his face, belly laughing to beat the band. Right? “There goes an idiot in my village,” you think to yourself.
But at the same time too, I’m also feeling kinda crappy about myself. That’s what you’re left with after staggering around your neighborhood, doubled over, howling and crying over this audiobook … when it hits you that you have tragically under appreciated the comedic genius of Norm Macdonald.
Jason Linoman nailed it when referencing the book in an opinion piece for the New York Times last week:
“There’s a lot of fun to be had in this liminal space between earnestness and just kidding. One of Macdonald’s most impressive feats is writing an entire memoir that remains there. It’s one of the greatest comedian memoirs but also a pointedly frustrating mix of fact and fiction, cliché and originality. It’s very funny, sometimes tedious, occasionally wise. The title, “Based on a True Story,” isn’t just a gag. It’s rooted in his faith that, as he puts it, “there is no way of telling a true story. I mean a really true one, because of memory. It’s just no good.”
His book is better than good. It’s a masterpiece. Get the audiobook version and don’t worry about what the neighbors think.