Woof.

Now that probably doesn’t seem like a great opener, but I do find myself with things to say both good and bad. Woof is mostly an exclamation related to some sort of exasperation or tension and release, and that’s what a humor book should be. Tension and release.

I don’t know I’d recommend this book to just anyone. Or rather, I would recommend it if I knew you well enough and I knew that you knew what was what.

Humor books aren’t for just everybody.

You’ve got to appreciate the craft and look past some of the murk. Some people can’t, and that’s okay. Some people are offended, and that’s okay. You have a right to be. Some of the offensive bits just aren’t funny, and using ‘funny’ to deflect culpability is a real problem.

Humor is built on tension and release, if the release doesn’t land then it’s not funny.

So here’s what’s important for you to hear: Norm Macdonald was a good writer. Norm Macdonald was someone skilled with words and inflection and story telling. He set word after word with an ease in an inevitable domino. Norm Macdonald was also someone who liked to take the piss and pull the rug out at the last minute, so as to skewer whatever sentimental turn he might have accidentally taken, instead assuring himself of maintaining his tone and humor and not tumbling accidentally into vulnerability.

That’s not an insult. He was a damn good writer, he knew what he was doing, and he did it. Unapologetically in most cases.

There are occasional themes in his humor that I can’t get behind–which is why if I was gonna recommend this book I’d want it to be to people who I knew knew what was to be known, as it were. There’s mentioned transphobia (which he apologized for in his comedy later in life), a few feckless mentions of rape, suicide, over the top misogyny, all intended to be humor —but the fear is how people take it; either as endorsement or insult. Satire is all risk if people can co-opt it.

The narrative takes this arc that begins very strong and then leans hard into revisiting old bits and Norm Macdonald characters from SNL. If you weren’t familiar with Norm Macdonald already you could say: my god, what risky and original content. Unfortunately if you know who Norm Macdonald is, and you probably do if you read this book, you probably have heard a lot of these jokes before. They’re given some new life and framing, I even liked the bit where the book is randomly interrupted by a suffering ghost writer who inserts his own thoughts (hatred) about Norm Macdonald.

I would have loved, fucking loved, to have read a completely original Norm Macdonald novel. The first few chapters in which he describes his fictional childhood are absolutely beautiful. They’re compelling, well written, full of Mark Twain-esque charms and then Norm Macdonald gut punches. It’s a bit, of course, but it also shows a skill with words and narrative framing that honestly I would have been happy to see extended into a whole damn book if not several. But then the rehashed bits come in, and the SNL characters, and you wish someone had sat the man down and said, ‘Look, you don’t have to rely on that.’

That’s condescending. Yeah, well.

What I’m saying is: the original content is amazing and you’re left feeling you only ever scratched the surface of how talented he was.

The book is strong for the things Norm Macdonald’s comedy was strong for: careful word choice, narrative framing, and clever turns. It’s also weak for the things Norm Macdonald’s comedy was weak for: punching down, no matter how good naturedly, and leaning into his want to be one of the boys.

I can’t tell you, honest, how much I liked those opening, original chapters. How I laughed at them, screenshot things to friends, and actually cared about the characters he’d made up to populate his childhood.

I also loved that you can see just what he’s doing: he’s telling you outright, you aren’t going to get to see the real me, fuckers.

Norm Macdonald, who I’m led to believe cut a quiet figure in life, and apparently didn’t drive despite living in LA, creates a purposely overly misogynistic character, detached from reality, shamelessly plotting to either fuck the world or take his own life. The character Norm chronically wears his own merch, at one point handling a man recognizing him by pointing at hat, shirt, etc., as the man says ‘what do I know you from?’ He pokes fun at his gambling addiction by taking the joke to its extreme, he overstates everything.

The book is in many ways overlapping framing devices, which Macdonald was the master of, sandwiching bits.

Particularly I’m fond of his sure fire answering machine bit which he repeatedly touts as being the best joke he’s ever written, and each time it’s told it never lands. He presents it again and again, straight faced, in new situations; pulling out his guaranteed winner, to stunning failure. His faith to the bit never wavers.

That might be this book in a sentence.

After he passed, I had heard an anecdote that I hope and kind of bet was true. It seems like it must be true because there’s no punchline and if Norm or one of his ilk had come up with it, he’d have pulled out the rug before it got too sentimental.

He was getting heckled and rather than clap back, the way we praise a comedian for being able to do, he paused his routine and asked the man if he’d be willing to meet with him after the show. After the show the man sort of sheepishly came back stage and Norm asked him what was going on with him and if he was all right. The man ended up breaking down crying and Norm Macdonald took him out to dinner. They spent the night bullshitting and Norm left him better off.

Every story I’ve heard about the man on his own, quiet and not seeking attention, is about something kind he did.

If you like his comedy, you’ll like the book; it’s like an in-club, a well tested group of inside jokes among a global mass of friends. I have a friend who when I said I was reading it kept saying ‘Oh, Norm’ in the same way we talk about one of our own friends who has passed.

If you don’t like his comedy, or the group of comedians he buzzed around and tried to keep the approval of, you might not like it. That’s totally fine, there’s shit not to like.

I just sort of hope he knew how good a writer he was.