How to Weep in Public
Feeble Offerings on Depression from One Who Knows
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- ¥1,100
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- ¥1,100
Publisher Description
This darkly funny memoir from “one of the next great stars in comedy” (Mike Birbiglia) doesn’t offer help overcoming depression—just much-needed comfort, company, and tips for life inside the fog.
“No one is able to synthesize the Venn diagram of depression and hilariousness quite like Jacqueline Novak.”—Nick Kroll
“While most books on depression try to help you win the war, this one is merely a cigarette in the trenches.”
With advice that ranges from practical (Chapter 17: Do Your Crying on a Cat) to philosophical (Chapter 21: Make Peace With Sunshine), this laugh-out-loud memoir traces the depression thread from Novak’s average suburban childhood to her current adult New York City existence, an imperfect but healthy-ish life in which Novak is mostly upright but still rarely does laundry.
At heart, How to Weep in Public provides a no-pressure safe zone for the reader to curl up inside. Whether you’re coping with the occasional down day or thriving fully in Picasso’s blue period, it’s the perfect place to regroup during a dark stint. Jacqueline will be waiting to tell you “You can fight another day.” No, not as in “fight on another day” but “fight this some other day.”
So sit back, relax, and let Jacqueline Novak show you how to navigate the shadowy corridors of your troubled mind—or the cheese display at the supermarket when food is the only thing that can save you.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Comedian Novak explores her personal experience with depression and offers tongue-in-cheek advice for fellow "depressos" in this humorous, if somewhat grating, memoir. She traces the roots of her disease from her childhood, through her teenage years (often spent listening to motivational speaker Tony Robbins cassette tapes alone in her car), to being fired from her first post-grad job at a boutique advertising agency after sleeping for 28 hours and missing a day of work. She offers solidarity and support for those suffering from depression, and insight into the self-defeating brain of a depresso for outsiders. Novak is funniest when riffing on self-help platitudes, advising readers on topics such as the easiest way to get out of bed in the morning (sleep with a wedge pillow so that there's less vertical distance to travel) and how to weep in public (avoid making your face puffy by bending over so that the tears fall straight down to the ground). Her writing is full of unexpected metaphors (college depression, she writes, "has many tentacles, probably knotted around your cheap furniture, suctions clinging to your elfa bins"), unapologetically offensive humor, and a graphic, unsparing description of colonics and the Master Cleanse, but adds levity to the daunting topic of depression. For anyone feeling down in the dumps, a dose of Novak will help mitigate the pain.
