Norm MacdonaldRecensioni

Not what I was expecting...

If the entire book consisted of nothing but the chapter where Norm goes to prison for attempting to pay a hitman to murder Dave Attell so he can win the love of Sarah Silverman it would still be 5 stars. I’ll leave you with some of my favourite quotes which will definitely spoil some lines worth discovering on your own, I offer them simply as a reminder to those who have already read it that they should promptly reread it. From a child with terminal cancer having the secret wish to club a baby seal to Adam Eget jerking off punks and hooking up with a woman who is almost certainly a 6”4 guy in drag, the book never has a dull moment.

“I was born in the Great White North and I remain to this day a Canadian citizen and I will till the day I die. I’ll tell you why. Canada is the country that shaped me, that taught me right from wrong, that turned me from a boy to a man. Also, that American citizenship test is way, way too hard. Trust me, I’ve tried it quite a few times. But no more. You know the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me thrice, shame on Adam Eget, pretending to be me and failing even worse; fool me four times, shame on the guy behind the desk at the Immigration and Naturalization office, who said he would see what he could do for a hundred clams and then said that he couldn’t do a damn thing but kept the hundred clams anyway; fool me five times, shame on the filthy homeless bum who could rattle off all the presidents in less than a minute but then the moment I gave him twenty dollars to do the test in my stead took off running down the street with a whoop and a holler; fool me six times, shame on me again, for threatening to burn down the federal building in New York City if I wasn’t given citizenship immediately. There would be no seventh time. Nobody ever accused this old country boy of being stupid.”

“I relax in my big hotel bed as I reflect on my life and career. This turns out to be a huge mistake. Anxiety begins to crawl across my motionless body like a spider. So, instead, I begin to reflect on the life and career of Adam Sandler. This calms me.”

“Death is a funny thing. Not funny haha, like a Woody Allen movie, but funny strange, like a Woody Allen marriage.”

“And so it went with Rodney Dangerfield. It reminded me of that line in the Scriptures: “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but don’t get no respect, no respect at all? Are you kidding me?”

“I will say this about the young boy in the tiny white coffin. Despite the doctor’s dire predictions, the boy was too tough, resolute, and courageous to let something as small as a deadly disease defeat him. No, the boy was made of stronger stuff than that and it took much more to defeat him. It took a three-ton municipal bus moving at forty miles per hour and driven by one Cecil Richard Anderson to defeat this boy.”

“Immediately, Adam Eget is on his hands and knees with his head underneath the couch, searching for the amyl nitrite as a swine would truffles.”

Silly but funny

Hugely important.

The audiobook is hilarious and read by norm himself, but I read a review that says its style is based on classic books.
*Okay, I read the physical book and its great. This is the only book that made me laugh. I don't think I've ever audibly laughed from a book. I guess I'll have to read classic books to see the connection.½

Macdonald, Norm. Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir. Spiegel and Grau, 2016.
For me, Norm Macdonald is one of those artists who define postmodernism. There is always a sense in his work that he knows he is pandering to an audience that knows he is pandering to it are willing participants in the idea that the whole enterprise is a joke within a joke within a joke. Thomas Pynchon, David Letterman, Bob Dylan, and Tom Waits are some of the others who have a similar effect on me. When Macdonald made fun of Carrot Top on the Tonight Show, everyone there knew that the insult would sell more tickets for Carrot Top than any amount of praise. I am tempted in that spirit to excoriate MacDonald’s novel, but I am too old and traditional to do it. In describing Based on a True Story, Wikipedia calls it a “’semi-fictional’ memoir.” Sorry. But the subtitle is important. The book is a novel that exploits some things people think they know about Macdonald to send up the whole idea of a celebrity memoir. The temptation to find honesty in the story of his years-long fight with cancer, his gambling addiction, or drug use on SNL is something the book dares a reader to do and will thumb its nose at you if you give into it. It's funny. And true sort of. Enough said. 4 stars.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a quick takes post, the point of which is to catch up on my "To Write About" stack—emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness..
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A fictionalized version of MacDonald's memoir, it's hard to tell what's memoir, what's a joke, what's a mixture. The more obviously genuine moments are marred by their vicinity to the clearly fictional. As a book? This is a mess—a self-indulgent, erratic, mess.

But wow. This was funny—even most of what I didn't like was funny.

Don't go into this thinking you'll understand MacDonald's life, career, or humor better. Go into it expecting a strange performance art-like experience with some giant laughs and you'll be set.

Finished in Yellowstone with Kevin, shortly after Norm left us. Funny that the ultimate straight man, pausing for affect, couldn't play his memoir straight. Whatever you want it to be...

Norm gets poetic at some parts, at some parts is silly. I choked laughing at some of the bits. I am a big fan of his stand up though so that may have informed how good I thought it was.½

Not my thing. I like his one liner dry humor, but not the long story stuff.

If you thought Norm Macdonald was going to write a straightforward autobiography, you haven't been paying much attention to him the past 30 years.

Based on a True Story resembles reality much less than its title might suggest. Yes, Dave Attell is a real person, but I feel like the story of Norm getting caught hiring a hit man to kill Attell and then raping a man in prison does more than just take creative liberties with the truth.

In fact, throughout the entire book, it was hard to pick out anything at all that was true. All we can tell for sure is that Norm was on Saturday Night Live, that he wrote a book, and that Adam Eget used to jerk off punks under the Queensboro bridge for fifteen dollars a man.

The thing is, I wouldn't have it any other way. If I have a choice between an honest retelling of Norm's life and a story that Norm gets to make up about himself, I'm always taking the latter. Who needs the truth when you have the funniest man on the planet writing a story about helping a terminally ill boy club a baby seal to death?

I have no idea how this book will be received by most people. Those who only know him from SNL will be very confused. Those who follow him on Twitter or are familiar with his podcast will probably be a little more prepared. But what I love most about the book is the way that Norm panders to absolutely nobody. He's not trying to wink at the people that claim to understand him, and he's not trying to shock the people that don't get him at all. He's just saying whatever he finds funny, audience be damned.

It feels strange calling a largely fictional book sincere, but that's what Based on a True Story is. This is who Norm is at his core: a professional storyteller in love with his work. He loved the grand old stories and the grand old jokes his father's friends would tell every night. He loves Tolstoy, who told some of the greatest stories ever over the course of a thousand pages, and he loves Billy Joe Shaver, who told some of the greatest stories ever over the course of a four minute song. The connection between those stories and the story of Norm trying to impress a man he thought was Andy Griffith seems tenuous, but its there. Based on a True Story isn't true, but it is true to Norm, and a good story that is true to its teller becomes a great one.

I know that's pretty sappy for a book containing lines like, "Thank God for Lorne Michaels and his hopeless addiction to liquid morphine", but the joy I got from reading this book went far beyond its humor. I may not have the true story, but I love the one I've got.

I only got to the part where Norm supposedly granted a dying child's wish to club a baby seal. The book is much more of a parody of an autobiography than an actual autobiography, and it is difficult to find the nuggets of truth, I suppose there is a very basic outline of one. I might have liked it better as an audiobook read by the author, because what makes Norm funny are not his jokes but his voice, timing, and delivery.

A delightful mess of a book. Only for the most forgiving Norm fans.

Well, leave it to Norm Macdonald to have written the most unusual celeb memoir I have ever read. He does however give you fair warning that not everything in the book is true. Instead it's this weird mix of truth, things that are ridiculously false, and stuff that makes you wonder, is he pulling my leg or is this legit?

I never listen to audiobooks, but this time I wish I had because his humor doesn't translate as well in written form. That's not to say the book isn't funny as there were multiple times while reading this in public at the airport I had to bite my lip from laughing out loud. I just think hearing him read his book would enhance the whole experience because part of why he is so funny is his way of delivering a joke.

I thought the book got off to a rather slow start. I was a good 1/4 of the way into it before it started to get pretty entertaining. I loved him including some of his old Weekend Update jokes as they are still as funny now as they were at the time.

I do have mixed feelings about this book. I probably would have enjoyed it more if it was in the style of a typical celeb memoir. But Norm is anything but typical so I guess I do appreciate the fact he went in a completely opposite direction. I recommend giving this one a chance if you are a fan of his, but get the audiobook instead of reading it in written form.

Parts of this are hilarious; other parts aren't. But one has to be grateful that the book is a parody of memoirs instead of the real thing. If it lost 75 pages, it would be better. If I had to do it again, I'd listen to it rather than read it so that I could hear Norm's delivery.

Some funny moments but nothing great. It was basically Norm being Norm the bit about his obituary in the newspaper was pretty good though. I like him but in small doses. his kind of humor can get on my nerves

A Memoir by Norm Macdonald

A special thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Being Canadian, and growing up watching SNL, I thought requesting this book was a no brainer, but it was simply a rambling monologue that ends up being one long joke. There were nuggets of real stories that were camouflaged with fiction. After reading this, I realized that the joke was on me.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY by Norm Macdonald is a memoir of life experiences with Norm Macdonald. Macdonald talks of growing up, life as a low level comedian, and how he ended up on SNL and beyond.
The title, BASED ON A TRUE STORY, tells the reader a lot about what they are about to read. Macdonald tells some great stories from his past, but inevitably, he veers away from the truth of the story and into hilarious fantasy, as if an improve actor grabbed Macdonald's reality and continued the story. Those tangents are funny and I tended to read along with those sidetracks for a while, not knowing where honest ended and the imagination began. There is also a "subplot" in the book about the ghostwriter that helped Norm write the book, and while I haven't researched if this person is real, I have my doubts, and that makes it all the funnier.
One cannot help but be entertained by the dry wit and comedic value Norm Macdonald brings to his memoir. He is brash, unique, and uninhibited and that's what makes this book a pleasure to read.
Thank you to Random House, Norm Macdonald, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This is the story of a so-so comedian and his mindless amanuensis, on a pointless quest to make an instant fortune to get out of a gambling addiction – by gambling. Norm Macdonald portrays himself as a shallow ignoramus, addicted gambler, morphine addict, addicted alcoholic, junk food gorger, stalker, and schemer of how to separate people from their money so he can gamble more. Along the way he blows every break he gets, from Saturday Night Live to US citizenship. His ghostwriter, whose contributions are highlighted in italic chapters, succeeds in committing suicide over having to work with Macdonald, but keeps writing anyway. So it’s a reality show. Starring Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. With Sarah Silverman as Dulcinea del Tobozo.

It becomes cartoonish as Macdonald is thrown from a window (by Dulcinea – I mean Sarah) and falls on concrete, only to get up and continue his quest. He is also in a major car accident with similar Wile E. Coyote recuperative powers. At one point he wakes up in a Las Vegas hotel room (he never has his own place) fat and bloated, with no memory of the last month. This is not your Good Housekeeping hero.

There are portions, documented with family photos, that contain truth. The only person who comes through it all on the upside is Adam Sandler, who engineered breaks for Macdonald. Repeatedly. For the rest, you’re on your own.

What I’ve always appreciated in Norm Macdonald’s standup is his style – his cadence. It’s not so much timing, as he telegraphs where to laugh too clearly. It is the buildup and the patter. I read the book as if he were delivering it, and it didn’t sound like him very often. There were a few occasions where he loaded up descriptions overfull and dumped the result in comic overkill – and those were great. But for the most part, this is straightforward bizarre narrative invention. Nothing wrong with that, either.

David Wineberg

This "memoir" is a series of convoluted memories from Norm MacDonald. It is mostly fiction, and hard to follow or understand. The jokes fall flat, and I only chuckled once. Norm is a broken down has-been, and is looking to score big at casinos. Unfortunately, he only has 200 dollars to his name. He gets an "assistant" that types this memoir for him while they go to Las Vegas and hit the casinos.

I would say if you're looking for a real memoir, this is not it. It is a bizarre mish-mash of fiction and real memories.

I was given a free copy for an honest review.