Does This Make Me Funny?
Essays
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
From the singular mind of Zosia Mamet, a collection of charmingly witty and achingly vulnerable essays about the challenge and magic of growing up in show business
You may know Zosia Mamet from her role as Shoshanna on Girls, or for being one of Hollywood’s original nepo babies (or as she says, “So if I’m a nepo baby I’m like a B minus one at best and maybe not even a full one. I’m like a nepo baby lite, a nepito baby, if you will”).
What you might not know is that as a toddler she visited theaters where her mom was rehearsing and crawled around on the floor, scrunching herself between seats; that she earnestly believed in Santa Claus for way too long; that she spent years navigating body image issues in hopes of finding elusive self-love; and that she was so overwhelmed and overjoyed when finally meeting her idol David Sedaris that she hid in the bathroom and melted into a “glitter puddle.”
The essays in Does This Make Me Funny? introduce us to Zosia Mamet in all her glory—from her early days growing up in literary and dramatic circles, to her years as a young adult pining for acceptance and love, to her first attempts to make it as an actor, to where she and Shosh are now. A gripping, funny, and earnest look at what it means to be a girl in the world and how to define yourself amid the bustle of show business, Does This Make Me Funny? is a captivating debut from a natural-born storyteller.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Girls star Mamet (My First Popsicle), the self-proclaimed "nepito baby" of playwright David Mamet and actor Lindsay Crouse, delivers a series of intimate, funny, and sometimes harrowing vignettes focused on show business and self-worth. On the darker side, Mamet details her challenges with anorexia and persistent body image issues, her strained relationship with an alcoholic teenage boyfriend, her loneliness from growing up as a perpetual outcast, and the relentless grind of trying to fulfill her acting ambitions. She juxtaposes those trials with humorous, celeb-studded memories of her first meeting with David Sedaris, losing a jacket to Axl Rose, and the pneumonia-stricken audition that landed her the role of Shoshanna in Girls (a character she wishes she could text). There's more heft here than in standard-issue showbiz memoirs: Mamet's struggles with self-doubt and self-definition resonate, and her jokes land more like attempts at maintaining good humor in the face of a cruel world than pure silliness. This is a must for Girls fans, aspiring actors, and young women attempting to figure out who they are.
