Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor
"One of the funniest writers in America."
That's what The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz calls Jenny Allen—and with good reason. In her debut essay collection, the longtime humorist and performer declares no subject too sacred, no boundary impassable.
With her eagle eye for the absurd and hilarious, Allen reports from the potholes midway through life's journey. One moment she's flirting shamelessly—and unsuccessfully—with a younger man at a wedding; the next she's stumbling upon X-rated images on her daughter's computer. She ponders the connection between her ex-husband's questions about the location of their silverware, and the divorce that came a year later. While undergoing chemotherapy, she experiments with being a "wig person." And she considers those perplexing questions that we never pause to ask: Why do people say "It is what it is"? What's the point of fat-free half-and-half ? And haven't we heard enough about memes?
Jenny Allen's musings range fluidly from the personal to the philosophical. She writes with the familiarity of someone telling a dinner party anecdote, forgoing decorum for candor and comedy. To read Would Everybody Please Stop? is to experience life with imaginative and incisive humor.
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Jenny Allen. (2017). Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Jenny Allen. 2017. Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections On Life and Other Bad Ideas. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Jenny Allen, Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections On Life and Other Bad Ideas. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Jenny Allen. Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections On Life and Other Bad Ideas. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.
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- bioText: Jenny Allen is a performer, and the author of Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times, among other publications. Her award-winning solo show, I Got Sick Then I Got Better, has been seen in venues across the country and in Canada. She lives on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
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Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor
"One of the funniest writers in America."
That's what The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz calls Jenny Allen—and with good reason. In her debut essay collection, the longtime humorist and performer declares no subject too sacred, no boundary impassable.
With her eagle eye for the absurd and hilarious, Allen reports from the potholes midway through life's journey. One moment she's flirting shamelessly—and unsuccessfully—with a younger man at a wedding; the next she's stumbling upon X-rated images on her daughter's computer. She ponders the connection between her ex-husband's questions about the location of their silverware, and the divorce that came a year later. While undergoing chemotherapy, she experiments with being a "wig person." And she considers those perplexing questions that we never pause to ask: Why do people say "It is what it is"? What's the point of fat-free half-and-half ? And haven't we heard enough about memes?
Jenny Allen's musings range fluidly from the personal to the philosophical. She writes with the familiarity of someone telling a dinner party anecdote, forgoing decorum for candor and comedy. To read Would Everybody Please Stop? is to experience life with imaginative and incisive humor.- reviews
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- source: Penelope Green, The New York Times
- content:
"A tartly funny and often piercingly emotional ramble through life at a certain age."
- premium: False
- source: Brook Allen, The Wall Street Journal
- content: "Observant . . . charming and companionable . . . To read the entire collection is to feel that one has gained an eccentric, generous new friend"
- premium: False
- source: Martha's Vineyard Times
- content: "If you can get your hands on Jenny Allen's new book, Would Everybody Please Stop? you may be tempted to gobble it all up at one sitting, telling yourself, "Just one more, and then I'll save the rest for later." But don't do it. Portion out these deliciously funny essays so that you can have some serious laughs a few days running. . . Some humor writers work very hard to be funny; others, like Ms. Allen, just can't help themselves."
- premium: False
- source: Elite Daily
- content: "A hysterical essay collection filled with so-called 'reflections on life' and 'other bad ideas' that will keep the tears (of laughter) coming."
- premium: False
- source: Margaret Heller, Library Journal
- content: "Like humorist Erma Bombeck, yet for the 21st century, Allen has a conversational but dramatic performer's voice that comes through in her essays and is a joy to spend time with as she deals with some of the harsher aspects of life . . . These pieces balance out into well-rounded set of writings that should please most humor fans; the lives of middle-aged women deserve more focus, and so Allen's rich vein of pathos is a welcome addition. Verdict: Lovers of darkly humorous domestic comedy will enjoy this one . . . everyone should be able to find something to appreciate."
- premium: True
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- content:
May 1, 2017
Would an Erma Bombeck of the 21st century have subscribed to the New Yorker? If so, she might have written, or at least identified with, this debut essay collection by a writer who has appeared in that magazine and elsewhere but whose topics have resonance beyond the metropolitan parochial.As she notes, like all mothers, Allen (The Long Chalkboard: and Other Stories, 2006) experiences parenting problems, such as the one detailed in "I Can't Get That Penis Out of My Mind," when she discovers that some boy has emailed her teenage daughter a photo of the title offender and she vacillates between rueful amusement and horror. "Just as grieving has its stages, I now enter a new stage of reacting to seeing a penis picture in your daughter's email," she writes. "I have passed through Shock, Panic, Hilarity, Pity; now, finally, I enter Outrage. My God, it is not all right to send a picture of an erect penis to a thirteen-year-old. What effect has it had on her?" Such problems give way to empty-nester issues, underscored in the aftermath of divorce. "I live alone," she begins the next essay, "It's About Time." "These things happen. Your children grow up, your husband leaves, and then you are one. This is a happy story, I promise, but I do need to say this: Get ready. You may be next." Throughout the book, Allen's humor never approaches the belly-laugh level, like some of her New Yorker pieces; these are more in the vein of bittersweet, wry observation. And sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying, as when the subject shifts to cancer and chemotherapy ("Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow"). Allen has toyed with mindfulness and meditation, and she plainly has the Twelve Steps lingo of AA down pat, but she writes like the woman next door, even if the next door isn't in Manhattan. These essays will resonate most strongly with women of a certain age and economic status.COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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June 1, 2017
Like humorist Erma Bombeck, yet for the 21st century, Allen has a conversational but dramatic performer's voice that comes through in her essays and is a joy to spend time with as she deals with some of the harsher aspects of life. The dark humor includes reflections on illness and mortality, particularly the cancer that formed the basis for the author's 2009 one-woman show "I Got Sick Then I Got Better," and being a single parent of teenagers after decades of marriage. At the other end, one finds the kind of absurdity found in The New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" column, in which Allen's work sometimes appears (think Martha Stewart fleecing a Buddhist monastery). These pieces balance out into a well-rounded set of writings that should please most humor fans; the lives of middle-aged women deserve more focus, and so Allen's rich vein of pathos is a welcome addition. VERDICT Lovers of darkly humorous domestic comedy will enjoy this one. Even though not all of the essays may appeal to all, everyone should be able to find something to appreciate.--Margaret Heller, Loyola Univ. Chicago Libs.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor
"One of the funniest writers in America."
That's what The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz calls Jenny Allen—and with good reason. In her debut essay collection, the longtime humorist and performer declares no subject too sacred, no boundary impassable.
With her eagle eye for the absurd and hilarious, Allen reports from the potholes midway through life's journey. One moment she's flirting shamelessly—and unsuccessfully—with a younger man at a wedding; the next she's stumbling upon X-rated images on her daughter's computer. She ponders the connection between her ex-husband's questions about the location of their silverware, and the divorce that came a year later. While undergoing chemotherapy, she experiments with being a "wig person." And she considers those perplexing questions that we never pause to ask: Why do people say "It is what it is"? What's the point of fat-free half-and-half ? And...- sortTitle
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