Customer Reviews

Have You No Shame?: And Other Regrettable Stories

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A funny book, but somehow clever turns into self-loathing. Am Yisrael Chai becomes "woe is me."

Have You No Shame? isn't merely laugh-out-loud funny. It's wake-up-your-significant-other-so-you-can-read-it-aloud funny, which is the highest order of funny. If Courtney Love were impregnated with the frozen sperm of S. J. Perelman, but gave the kid to Garrison Keillor to raise -- that kid just might be lucky enough to write like Rachel Shukert.

Shukert's book is a collection of essays about growing up Jewish in Omaha, Nebraska (mostly) -- but that description makes the book sound a lot squarer and more ordinary than it is. We're used to the idea of a male Jewish writer shpritzing caustically and candidly, like Philip Roth or Bruce Jay Friedman. We're used to the idea of a warts-and-all comic memoir that veers between the amusing and the horrifying, ala Augusten Burroughs or Tobias Wolff. But I can't think of another woman who has claimed the particular piece of literary terrain that Rachel Shukert makes her own. She's unabashedly sexual, unapologetically Jewish, and somehow keeps things three-dimensional and real instead of cartoonish and smutty. For instance, while her mordant observational wit spears her family as often as it does anyone else, they still come off as loveable and complex human beings. So does everyone in this hilarious, touching, memorable book.

This book is so friggin funny that it aggravated an old war wound from all the laughing I did. It's like some painfully intimate HBO screenplay where no taboo goes un-turned.

I loved this book so much that over the course of the 2 days I was reading it (couldn't put it down, also didn't want to finish it) I read excerpts of it outloud to people in my apt, a restaurant, a bar, and even a Chase bank. Since finishing it I have recommended it to friends, parents friends, hair stylists, and dentists alike and I recommend it to you. I haven't enjoyed a book as much as this in a long time.

Wise beyond her years, Rachel Shukert's Have You No Shame? is at once a calm testament of long-since, learned from experiences and an ecstatic, orgasmic and immediate confession of a twenty-something. Her stories are vivid, emotional and hilarious. She came from Omaha to conquer the world. Have You No Shame? is great start. BRAVO!

This is the funniest book I've read in years, and captures my generation better than anything I've encountered to date. Rachel Shukert's hilarious Jewish family picks up where early Philip Roth left off. Her sense of humor is relentless, and her "experiences" make the David Sedaris prose that we were all so recently shocked by look tame by comparison. To top it all off, I found myself very attached to the leading lady, and totally heart broken at the book's conclusion.

Rachel Shukert is Jewish and she lets you know on page one. The book of essays highlights various stages of her life, from a fear of Nazis at an early age to finding a job right out of college. Each essay has a hint of, well, Jewishness and that's what makes them funny (or, relatable for me). She's an amazing story teller who can wrap words around any situation. And she's hilarious. The essay documenting her time as an actress in a youth theatre especially rings true, full of heart and humor. She never hides the truth which is both admirable and brave. Demonstrated specifically in the essay documenting her stint with anorexia, at first you feel bad for her, sympathizing with her lifestyle. But when she mentions the drug use and alcoholism, you stop feeling sorry and start wondering what she was thinking. It's slightly irritating. I suppose that's what makes a great writer, though - abandoning the fear of telling the truth. Definitely an entertaining book.

If you are Jewish, from Generation X, or fulfill both of these criteria, you will find this book quite charming. Shukert's writing is witty, irreverant, and full of wry humor. The book explores some of the finer moments of growing up Jewish in small town America. I'm recommending this book to all of my friends.