Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the '80s

One of my favorite books of all time. Amy Schumer A tour de force of comedy and reflection about the perilous journey from kindergarten to twelfth grade and beyondfrom the beloved stand-up comic and creator of The Great Depresh For years, Gary Gulman had been the comedians comedian, acclaimed for his delight in language and his bracing honesty. But after two stints in a psych ward, he found himself back in his mothers house in Bostonliving in his childhood bedroom at age forty-six, as he struggled to regain his mental health. Thats where Misfit begins. Then it goes way back. This is no ordinary book about growing older and growing up. Gulman has an astonishing memory and takes the reader through every year of his childhood education, with obsessively detailed stories that are in turn alarming and riotously funny. We meet Gulmans family, neighbors, teachers, heroes, and antagonists, and get to know the young comedian-in-the-making who is his own worstand most persistentenemy. From failing to impress at grade school show-and-tell to literally fumbling at his first big football gamein settings that take us all the way from the local playground to the local mall, from Hebrew School to his best (and only) friends rec room, young Gary becomes a stand-in for everyone who grew up wondering if they would ever truly fit in. And thats not all: the book is also chock-full of 80s nostalgia (Scented Markers, indifference to sunscreen, mall culture). Misfit is a book that only Gary Gulman could have written: a brilliant, witty, poignant, laugh-until-your-face-hurts memoir that speaks directly to the awkward child in us all.