Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Deeply funny, moving, and urgent writing about a country that can feel broken into pieces and the light that shines through the cracks, from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins, author of Maeve in America.
As an eternally curious outsider, Maeve Higgins can see that the United States is still an experiment. Some parts work well and others really don’t, but that doesn't stop her from loving the place and the people that make it. With piercing political commentary in a sweet and salty tone, these essays unearth answers to the questions we all have about this country we call home; the beauty of it all and the dark parts too.
Maeve attends the 2020 Border Security Expo to better understand the future of our borders, and finds herself at The Alamo surrounded by queso and homemade rifles. A chance encounter with a statue of a teenage horseback rider causes her to interrogate the purpose of monuments, this sends her hurtling through the past, connecting Ireland’s revolutionary history with the struggles of Black Americans today. And after mistaking edibles for innocent candies, Maeve gets way too high at Paper Source.
Most of all, Maeve wants to leave this country and this planet better than she found it. That may well be impossible, but it certainly means showing love. Lots of it, even when it's difficult to do so. Threaded through these pieces is love for strangers, love for friends who show up right on time, love for trees, love for Tom Hardy, love for those with differing opinions, love for the glamorous older women of Brighton Beach with tattooed eyeliner and gold jewelry, love for everybody on this train.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Irish comedian Higgins (Maeve in America) reveals her serious side in this probing if uneven reflection on such contemporary concerns as pandemic isolation, racism, police brutality, and climate change. In "Misneach and Rumors of War," Higgins visits the Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond, Va., after becoming perplexed by American conservatism, and compares debates over removing the statue to the IRA's destruction of Irish monuments. In "Situational Awareness," she visits the 2020 Border Security Expo in San Antonio, Tex., where "tequila flowed" and "suited men with buzz cuts" were "clapping each other on the back," while "Bubbles and Planks" sees her stoned on cannabis-laced chocolates, after which she interrogates a chocolatier: "I want to know about consciousness and whether or not my mind is all I am.... Is that too much to ask some guy in a kitchen mixing weed with lychee fruit juice and vegan gelatin alternatives?" Along the way, she offers scattershot reflections on her battle with mental illness, the ups and downs of her career, and her credit card debt ("I owed Chase thousands of truly unnecessary dollars because my credit card had a mind of her own!"). Higgins is an accomplished writer, but there's a hodgepodge feeling to this collection that saps the energy from it. Readers unacquainted with Higgins's work may struggle to get on board.
