I read and loved Lindy West’s (she/her) two previous works of nonfiction: Shrill and Shit, Actually. The first was West’s memoir, in which she uses humor to share her story, including her abortion, the death of her father, and analyzing and criticizing how lazy stand-up comics have gotten by repeatedly punching down. The second was a collection of commentary, in which she, “…rated every movie in said book on a scale of zero to ten DVDs of The Fugitive.” Given that West is only three years older than me, I enjoyed myself and the nostalgia that came with her digging through 90s films and pointing out the absurdity of many that we love. I laughed a lot.
But The Witches Are Coming was written largely in response to Donald Trump’s claims that everything he’s accused of doing that he doesn’t like is the result of a witch hunt. He used that phrase so many times it became meaningless, in my opinion. Here’s the problem: Trump isn’t that far behind in the rear-view mirror, so criticisms of Trump feel more like a rehashing of what we just lived through (and are still processing and recovering from . . . and also dealing with the fallout of). In the first few essays, I caught myself having “yeah, yeah, yeah” moments, which translates to “move it along, I know all of this.” You may be thinking, “But Melanie, what if someone reading The Witches Are Coming doesn’t know all of this?” Well, West acknowledges that she knows the kind of person who reads her book, and it’s people who are liberal. Like me.
But I noticed over the course of the three days that I was reading The Witches Are Coming that I was fixating on every political conversation in my extended family that ended in frustrating disappointment. Comments about race, religion, abortion, immigration, welfare, and the pandemic. Comments that are so ignorant it’s not even worth engaging with them. My brain circled the drain, remember what was said, who said it, how the conversation could have gone differently, what was said, who said it, etc. Round and round while I did the dishes and organized my office and ate my Cheerios and while I typed this blog post (and a couple of other posts before it). While I petted my cat. While I talked to Biscuit.
Fixating is a curse of anxiety, and every time the mental toilet water swirls, the murky brown water starts to rise instead of going down the drain. To “flush” my toilet, so to speak, I switched back to listening to The Storyteller by Dave Grohl. The chapter was a lovely tale about him leaving Australia immediately after a concert to fly back to his two daughters in the U.S. for a special dance that demonstrates he’s a reliable dad and then two hours later leaving for the airport again, getting on the plane, suffering food poisoning while making the twenty-hour flight again to get back to Perth just in time for a sound check to put on a Foo Fighters show (*panting to catch my breath*) warmed my heart. Please get this audiobook and listen to it; Dave Grohl is good people. I felt better.
Sorry, The Witches Are Coming, but I needed to plunge you instead of reading through what is both confirmation bias (I agree with what she’s writing) and a one-trick pony. What do I mean? A cool story about her husband playing trumpet (“…one might describe the trumpet as a machine where you put in compressed air and divorce comes out…”) turns into how failing to acknowledge privilege leads to racism. A funny piece about a home renovation TV show with a formula for success (“Cover every surface in ‘shiplap,’ which is expensive for ‘boards'”) turns to whether we should investigate the show hosts’ moral compass based on the church they attend. Perhaps West feels that her platform obligates her to comment on racism, sexism, gender bias, sizeism, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, poverty, privilege, and propaganda (…not really a mention of disability that I recall…). But when the book is preaching to the choir about all the things that make them angry, I wonder what it’s really meant to achieve. Is it the job of the comic writer to turn all humor into the political battlefield?
DNF at 70%
CW: abortion, racism, homophobia, transphobia
Grab the Lapels 
I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with preaching to the choir? The feeling is that the choir is your people and you need to keep them engaged, but I guess you need to do it in a way that appeals to them not turn them off as West has done with you!
The Foo Fighters are not my generation but I love that he gave you needed respite.
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Maybe if the preacher were on fire and he yelled at the choir, “You are on fire!!!” and they yelled back, “No, YOU’RE on fire!!!” And they ran around while the building burned down around them. That fire is stressful!
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Interesting! I’m not sure I will keep it on my TBR list. It would be “preaching to the choir” for me as well. Sometimes it feels good to feel vindicated in your opinions, but that can also be boring. Do you feel like the author threw this book out there to make a quick buck considering the time it was published?
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I think Lindy West is likely more a “I have to do something” person, and felt the book was timely. But what does it do to tell people about what they’re experiencing? Are we all trying to shout together? When I was teaching, I would tell my students not to summarize at the end of a short essay because their audience just read all the info. They’ve got it. Instead, end on something actionable. I wish West had done something more with action instead of reiterating to me that old white men can be racist and that black people are harassed and murdered. I’m thinking, “Yes, I’ve got it. Now what?”
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I think that would be a better way to end an essay for sure. Otherwise, it does just come off as shouting. We KNOW all these things, now let’s work on changing it. What can each individual person do to help?
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I really enjoyed Shrill but gave up on this one after the first two essays for the reasons you outline here. At first I thought you were going to say it all turned around after the first essays and I was going to regret giving up on it. No regrets!
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I felt bad that I did not want to keep reading West’s book, so I’m happy to feel validated with your confirmation of having the same feeling. I’m not sure if you know who Bill Maher is, but he’s a stand-up comedian and host of his own (various, throughout the years) show. He’s a liberal, but has some oddly conservative opinions, too. Anyway, the entirety of his jokes are stating things that happened in the political arena and then making a “Can you believe this crap?” face. I got the same vibe when I was reading West’s book.
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I had much the same experience reading this one. I really can’t criticize her for not being able to be funny about the Trump era, but I was still kind of hoping, you know?
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True, and I think I would have preferred she either choose to be funny or choose to write critical essays. When you’re essays criticizing a moment that is still happening, throwing in jokes, and then really pushing hard on a social justice message, well…it all started to feel like a confusing, preachy hot mess to me. Thanks for writing, Jeanne!
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Dave Grohl rocks! I got his autograph once when Foo Fighters played a tiny record store show in Knoxville back in 2000 – they opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers later that night – what a great show! He seemed super nice.
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Throughout his whole book, he just seemed like the most normal nobody ever. Like, you wouldn’t know he was famous based on his reactions to stuff. I will say, one of my favorite moments in the book is when he said the Foo Fighters were taking a hiatus, “or as I call it, an I Hate Us.”
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Sure Dave Grohl loves his daughters but a return flight Aust-USA is a lot of wasted fuel/CO2 emissions. I think one of the thing with comedians is that we have to be careful what we’re laughing at – very easy to be led to laugh at easy targets. Your family arguments reminds me that my father used to tell Idi Amin jokes which were just an excuse to say how stupid Black people are. I eventually asked him to stop, and he did, but there was a shocked silence around the dining table. (I’m not even sure he was racist, just thoughtless).
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It is absolutely a huge waste of fuel, I agree. I guess the stand-out was that he wasn’t horrible to this family he’d created back home, but you’re right.
I’ve been thinking more about comedians I loved growing up and how they sound so ignorant now. I did learn from The Witches Are Coming is that the problem is things always change, but people don’t always grow. So you get these older comedians telling jokes that were funny in the 1990s now in the 2020s, and it’s not funny. I’m glad you said something to your dad, and the fact that he just stopped and didn’t start a fight over it does suggest he wasn’t even aware, like you say.
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I know what you mean about your mental toilet swirling round and round. I feel that way with many of my family members too – their arguments that global warming isn’t caused by humans, or that it’s “reverse-racism” if certain spots to courses are reserved for black people first, etc. I start to re-think what they say and get upset, wish I had something better to counteract their stupid and selfish arguments.
Too bad about this book – for some reason I really like the cover though LOL
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Oh, no! I’m so bummed you have family that bring all this stuff to the table. Fortunately, my immediate family isn’t frustrating about politics, but some of Biscuit’s siblings are. I feel for you. Another blogger (Bill) just shared a story in which he told his dad to stop reiterating jokes from a specific comedian, who is racist, and the table got real quiet, but his dad stopped. Maybe you could just tell them to stop. I’m rooting for you.
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Thank you! I’ve asked my husband to step in and tell ppl to stop talking about politics, and for the most part they’ve listened (because it’s his family primarily).
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An interesting question you asked at the end and I have been thinking about it since I read your post. I came to the conclusion that no, I don’t think comedians have to turn everything into a political battlefield. It is perfectly possible to make very funny comedy that is entirely or largely apolitical. Since the start of the pandemic, I have been listening to and loving John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme, which is a radio sketch show that has been airing over here for several years. It’s a mixture of sketches and songs, the humour is surreal/historical/to do with books. I’ve no idea if he’s funny outside the UK, but I have certainly appreciated having a very funny show to listen to that’s totally unrelated to current events. His Sisyphus sketch is a good example of his humour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdCUy1oFlso
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Thanks for the link, Lou! My favorite kind of comedy is when a comedian tells stories from their own life and shows the humor. One comic even talked about how his mother, a schizophrenic, died, and it was strangely funny because of how it affected his life and how he changed to adapt to her mental illness. Bill Burr also has a really funny special about himself, but then his follow-up special is all about picking at other people (most notably a painfully long bit about fat people). I’ll check out the video you linked tonight. 🙂
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I’m glad you’re enjoying Storyteller – I’m not a huge Foo Fighters fan but I think Dave Grohl is one of the most talented musicians alive and he seems like a good guy so it’s nice to hear that’s how he comes across in the book.
Sometimes preaching to the choir can be helpful, I think, especially if it’s a “Keep up the good work, this is the way to do it” kind of preaching. But sometimes things like this just make me feel stressed and guilty. Or I find I get more upset with the real life people around me and that doesn’t serve me well either.
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Hmmmm, there wasn’t much in the way of “keep up the good work” in this book. It was more like “You know everything’s on fire, right??” + *waves arm around at everything*
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Yeah, I don’t think any of us need a book to point that out at this point!
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