SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
In this audiobook memoir, comedian Maeve Higgins presents stories about her family and friends, her world travels, and some mistakes in her life. She uses a soft Irish lilt to great effect when she tells family tales and gives a much stronger presentation when she discusses her values and her opinions about comedy. She is not above creating sound effects for her funniest story, which involves dolphins trying to kill her—complete with hilarious screams, gurgles, and spluttering as she is nearly drowned. Listeners will enjoy hearing a complex comedian who writes funny, thinks funny, and can add physical comedy when needed. E.E.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 04/09/2018
“Aside from getting champagne in your eye, or being snapped at by your pet toucan, bemoaning a lack of purpose is the most privileged problem in the known universe, so I won’t drone on about it,” writes comedian Higgins in the first essay of her wickedly funny collection. In the 14 pieces that follow, Higgins delivers on her promise to reach beyond the self while addressing such topics as Rent the Runway, a designer-clothes rental service, and the Muslim travel ban with incisive humor and deep humility. In her exceptional essay, “Pen as Gun,” about teaching a comedy workshop in Iraq, questions that begin with the self give rise to political and global considerations: “What if comedy, and creativity, these nebulous things I’ve devoted all these years to, are, in the grand scheme of things, unhelpful? Or even pointless?” While Higgins wisely steers clear of reducing insight to adage—“Comics taking themselves seriously have always made me laugh”—her commitment to wrestling openly and ethically with personhood and privilege suggests “that we are not alone, that we have this common language.” Higgins has the rare gift of being able to meaningfully engage with politics and social ills while remaining legitimately funny. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
If Tina Fey and David Sedaris had a daughter, she would be Maeve Higgins. (And while I’m building the fantasy family of comedy, let’s put Nora Ephron somewhere on the family tree.) Higgins’s essays cover subjects ranging from what kind of shelter dog she would be to emigrating from Ireland, but a single thread weaves through each one: that elusive feeling of laughing around a big lump in your throat.”
—Glamour (The Best Books to Read This Summer)
“Sharp-eyed . . . deeply funny and astute.”
—People (The Best New Books)
“Hilarious . . . Maeve in America lives up to the hype. It’s chock-a-block full of personal tales of both success and failure, all told with that elusive combination of self-deprecation and grandeur.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“One of the most charming exports to the American comedy scene is Irish writer Maeve Higgins. . . . Higgins’s vibe [is] wary but hopeful, clever but earnest. [The] sensibility [that] runs through: deep empathy and genuine curiosity about the American experience of newcomers . . . with more Michael Fassbender jokes, and a bit more self-deprecating humor (stop, Maeve, you’re perfect).”
—Maris Kreizman, Vulture (New Paperbacks You Should Read This August)
“[A beach read] that is actually beach appropriate.”
—New York Magazine (The Approval Matrix: Brilliant)
“[An] ingenious collection of essays that examine the personal and the political, offering an incredible outsider’s view of America’s current cultural climate and its place within the world. . . . Higgins’s insightful and wacky essays will not only make you laugh; you'll also nod in recognition and sigh in solidarity. . . . It’s her outsider’s perspective that makes her commentary of current day America so unique and critical at a time when migrants and immigrants are fighting to have their voices heard.”
—Esquire (The Best Books of 2018 (So Far))
“Celebrate the person who stands out from the crowd with [this] memoir from [a] self-described outsider: Maeve in America, Maeve Higgins’s hilarious essay collection about leaving Ireland in her thirties, and finding herself in New York.”
—Buzzfeed (The Best Books From 2018 For Every Kind Of Reader)
“Maeve turns her wise eye toward our culture in witty, relatable essays.”
—Good Housekeeping
“Maeve in America will provide the laughter to soothe your soul. . . . Maeve Higgins is funny. So funny you will laugh multiple times while reading each of these essays, replete with uncanny imagery and off-the-wall situations. So funny that, at 31, she was confident enough in her career as an Irish comic to make it in America. Higgins expertly threads important social commentary amid the hilarity. Maeve in America is a satisfying essay collection that is as stimulating as it is funny. It’s a great book to read and then to give to a friend.”
—Refinery29 (Get Excited About These Amazing August Reads)
“Higgins’s essays are a fun romp that are perfect summer reading.”
—Bustle
“Upbeat and funny . . . The chapters are short and spunky . . . like a collection of Snapchat Stories that you can keep forever.”
—BUST
“Anyone who delves into the compulsively readable Maeve in America would surely pronounce [Higgins’s] abilities extraordinary enough to game any visa system, no matter how flawed.”
—Fast Company
“Wickedly funny . . . with incisive humor and deep humility . . . Higgins has the rare gift of being able to meaningfully engage with politics and social ills while remaining legitimately funny.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Sharp and readable . . . A keen observer of culture, [Maeve Higgins] offers timely insights about race and immigration in America. . . . Witty, humane, and topical, these essays offer an enlightened perspective on modern American culture while probing the energetic inner life of a bright young Irish comic. A warmly intelligent and insightful collection.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Prepare to laugh as comedian Maeve Higgins shares tales of an Irish girl in New York . . . with humor and flair. Higgins is a smart essayist, providing thoughtful insights, and you can tell she cares deeply about her subjects. . . . She deftly balances humor and gravitas. . . . Maeve Higgins may not be a household name yet, but she certainly has some things to say.”
—Booklist
“If this is your first time reading Maeve Higgins, I’m jealous. She’s hilarious, poignant, conversational, and my favorite Irish import since U2. You’re in for a treat.”
—Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can’t Touch My Hair
“Maeve Higgins is hilarious. She is the true Irish voice of our American generation.”
—Amy Schumer
“Maeve Higgins is brilliant; but her brilliance isn’t the braggy, headlight kind that tries to trap her subjects deer-like in a cold, dead glare. Instead, she lights every room she enters with warmth, welcome, and generous rays of sheer funny. And in this book, she illuminates the world.”
—John Hodgman, bestselling author of Vacationland
“Maeve Higgins is easily one of my favorite, most treasured comedic voices. She is one of those rare artists who makes her unique point of view relatable and refreshing, leaving you feeling like you’ve been on the same page with her your whole life.”
—Kristen Schaal
“Until space aliens land in America, Maeve Higgins from Ireland is the next best thing. She offers fresh and insightful perspectives from a faraway place on all we take for granted.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Maeve Higgins is the funniest writer I know. And Maeve in America is just so smart and joyful. I especially like it when she’s unhappy. Because she’s very funny about it. Always be unhappy, Maeve!”
—Jon Ronson, author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
“This is a really funny, really natural, really gifted writer.”
—Kevin Barry, author of Beatlebone and City of Bohane
“Higgins is rarer than a blessing of unicorns. . . . She is original and relatively calm, her observations are pithy, her wit delicate, her persona oddly alluring and deftly honest.”
—The Irish Times
SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
In this audiobook memoir, comedian Maeve Higgins presents stories about her family and friends, her world travels, and some mistakes in her life. She uses a soft Irish lilt to great effect when she tells family tales and gives a much stronger presentation when she discusses her values and her opinions about comedy. She is not above creating sound effects for her funniest story, which involves dolphins trying to kill her—complete with hilarious screams, gurgles, and spluttering as she is nearly drowned. Listeners will enjoy hearing a complex comedian who writes funny, thinks funny, and can add physical comedy when needed. E.E.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-05-01
An Irish comic and writer gathers essays about her experiences living and working in the United States.In this sharp and readable book, Higgins (We Have a Good Time…Don't We?, 2013, etc.) tells the story of how she came to America as an adult still learning how to go about "the endlessly tricky business of being a regular human being." In "Rent the Runway," for example, she details her experience of renting a decidedly unmagical—but more affordable—second-choice gown for her first New York ball. The process uncovered all of the author's personal insecurities, but a moment of grace at the ball made her realize that she was more than just her attire. In "Pen as Gun," Higgins turns her attention to her profession, discussing an especially memorable experience leading a comedy workshop in Iraq. Working with Muslim comics who spoke truth to power made her acutely aware of "the sliver of shared space between comedy and tragedy," and it gave her insight into the dark humor of her Northern Irish counterparts. A keen observer of culture, the author offers timely insights about race and immigration in America. In "Aliens of Extraordinary Ability," she describes how Irish-American nostalgia often imagines an Ireland that never existed; at the same time, she muses on the privilege her "indoor ghost face" has conferred on her in America. Higgins points out how early Irish immigrants learned how to collaborate in the oppression of other minorities to get ahead but how descendants like Mike Pence continue to ignore the crucial role race played in their ascension to (white) success. Her own commitment to truth before humor emerges clearly in "Wildflowers." Unable to keep a promise to a producer that she would turn a podcast about immigration into comedy fluff, the author lost the show but maintained her integrity. Witty, humane, and topical, these essays offer an enlightened perspective on modern American culture while probing the energetic inner life of a bright young Irish comic.A warmly intelligent and insightful collection.
