BOOK REVIEW: Sarah Silverman's 'The Bedwetter'

As a conservative I can’t afford to limit myself to entertainment choices that I agree with politically. I read Ms. Silverman’s book hoping to get some insight into why so many people seem to think she is the modern Lenny Bruce. My thinking was even if she isn’t my particular cup of Earl Grey at least I could see what all the buzz is about. I also figured that if Rush and Sir Elton can get along maybe I could find something to like in Ms. Silverman’s comedy.

I went to Amazon.com and read the forward, afterword and figured if I selected the “surprise me” tab often enough and opened and closed the browser several time I might get to see the whole book for free. After an hour of being cheap and trying to scam a free read I saw a used copy for $14 and rationalized that this money was going to the reseller and not to Ms. Silverman, so I ordered the book.

I have a number of comedy pet peeves and one of them is the “fake funny quote” on a comic’s resume or promo material. The problem is that that has been done to death, and most of the time it isn’t really funny. Yet, there on the cover of a book written by a comedian who is reported to be on the leading edge of comedy are the quotes from her childhood “friends.” (At least I think that is what the joke is supposed to be.)

Another comedy thing that annoys me is when at some point in their act a comic says something like, “Okay, this next thing really happened,” or “This is a true story.” The problem is that when you say that you break the illusion that everything you say is true. In “The Bedwetter” Ms. Silverman tells a story about losing her virginity to another older comic. A few pages later she has a series of e-mails between them where she and the comic share their recollections of the night in question and show that the story as reported is at least partly fabricated. I understand that she has done this for comic effect but why tell us? In the story as told, the comic in question comes off as an unfeeling jerk. Does she not want to hurt his feelings so she lets us know that he’s really an okay guy and it’s just a joke?

The first seventy or eighty pages of “The Bedwetter” are a non-chronological recounting of her childhood and early career. From her bedwetting to her teen depression she recounts her ups and downs in somewhat surprisingly limited detail. One detail that Ms. Silverman does share is that when she was a teen she was taking up to 16 Xanax a day! I felt sorry that no one in her life had the common sense to say, “Man, that’s a lot of psychotropic drugs for a teenager! Maybe we should question that.”

There is a short section on her dad, who she says hates rich folks, so maybe she is now on that list. Ms. Silverman also spends a lot of time apologizing. She says she’s sorry for several of the events which brought her to wider public attention, her ridiculing of Paris Hilton going to jail and Brittany Spears “comeback” on MTV. She lets us know that she wrote both apology letters at the time.

Perhaps she’s worried they might not invite her to their parties now that Ms. Silverman is a bit of a celebrity herself. Of course there is no apology to the millions of non-celebrities she has offended with her “Jesus is Magic” show. Those peons can just go… in fact she spends a few pages deriding them and the fact that they would even express their outrage. The later part of the book deals with insider information about her show on Comedy Central. Since I wasn’t a fan the section held my interest a little less time than the current World Cup hoopla.

The problem with Ms. Silverman’s book isn’t that it’s bad. If it really sucked I would be gleefully slamming it. The problem is that most of the book is extremely ordinary. There were several parts I did find enjoyable and made me move Ms. Silverman up a few notches on my great comic rankings. First, was that at SNL, during a meeting, she stabbed Al Franken in the head with a sharp pencil! That’s funny and cool at the same time and she offered no apology to Mr. Franken. Secondly was that after being criticized for telling a great satirical joke that included the word “chink” she got a lot of guff from a guy at an Asian anti-defamation group. After trying to explain the joke and apologizing to the guy, he would not be placated. Frustrated, she called him a douchebag on national television! That makes me think there may be hope for Ms. Silverman.

Now that that’s over would anyone like to buy a copy of “The Bedwetter?”