Official Book Club Selection

Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin

By Kathy Griffin

Kathy Griffin is an interesting phenomenon for me. I find her standup completely obnoxious and not funny in any way, shape, or form. A few years ago, because I am obsessed with pretty much anything on Bravo, I stumbled upon her show, My Life on the D List. The show, unlike her standup, was hilarious. When she is not trying so hard to be funny, funniness seems to just find her.

I admit, I did not read this book: I listened to it. I was embarking on a 23 hour (yes, you read that correctly) road trip with my mom and I knew music would get a bit stale around hour 13 or so. It wasn’t easy to convince my mom, who has a similar view of Griffin but has never seen the television show, that the book should be a lot of fun to listen to.

Needless to say, in the end, I prevailed and my mom and I LOVED listening to this hilarious book.

As always, her discussions of her family were really funny, as were her chapters about other comedians, love, sex, and floundering careers. I mean, who knew that her mother was the second prettiest girl at her local parish?

But I was also captivated by the serious sections: those involving her drug-addicted, pedophile brother, her brush with death for the sake of vanity, and, most of all, the destruction of her marriage were incredibly candid and created a lot of conversation during the drive.

Annoyingly, there was also a lot of ego-masturbating. This came in the form of name-dropping, personal horn-tooting, and so on and so forth. Though, this might just be part of what makes her a D-list celebrity.

Don’t let that scare you away.

We both laughed out loud and found ourselves unable to contain visceral reactions (a lot of gasps, reaction-faces…). After the ride, my mom asked me if the show was still on because she felt like she really knew Kathy Griffin and wanted to see her in action and put faces to names (weirdly enough, a marathon was on just a couple days later).

Final note: I am so glad she discussed how funny Rosie O’Donnell is on her show. I love Rosie. I love her so much.