IS:
Extremely funny.
USED TO:
Work at The Stranger.
RECENTLY:
Published a memoir, Shrill, about her “transformation from a terror-stricken mouse-person to an unflappable human vuvuzela.”
Lindy West used to be shy. It’s hard to imagine. When she was an intern at The Stranger in 2005, she hardly said a word. It was only after she starting writing theater reviews and then movie reviews that the full force of her one-of-a-kind mind—and, specifically, her gift at humor—became clear.
She’s brain-meltingly funny. Her debut memoir, Shrill, tries to answer the question about how she got less shy in a chapter called “How to Stop Being Shy in Eighteen Easy Steps.” It turns out that there aren’t exactly 18 steps and that she has no advice: “Women ask me, ‘How did you find your voice? How can I find mine?’ and I desperately want to help, but the truth is, I don’t know… Every human being is a wet, gassy katamari of triumphs, traumas, scars, coping mechanisms, parental baggage, weird stuff you saw on the internet too young, pressure from your grandma to take over the bodega when what you really want to do is dance, and all the other fertilizer that makes a smear of DNA grow…”
