Lifeform

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Title:

Lifeform

Alternate title:

Life form

Author:

Slate, Jenny, 1982- author.

Summary:

"What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal--but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal? Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases--Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing--through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more."-- Publisher

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xi, 225 pages ; 22 cm

Genre:

Essays.

Humor.

Personal Subject:

Slate, Jenny, 1982-

Subject Term:

Television actors and actresses -- Biography.

Comedians -- Biography.

Authors, American -- Biography.

Publisher:

Little, Brown and Company,

Publication Date:

2024

ISBN:

9780316263931

Publication Information:

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2024.

Call Number:

814 SLATE

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003752816	New Adult Nonfiction	814 SLATE	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From actor, comedian, co-creator of Marcel the Shell, and New York Times bestselling author of Little Weirds, Jenny Slate, a wild, soulful, hilarious collection of genre-bending essays depicting the journey into motherhood as you've never seen it before.

What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal--but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal?

Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases--Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing--through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more.

No one writes like Jenny Slate.

Author Notes

Jenny Slate is an actor and stand-up comedian, and the author of the essay collection Little Weirds (an instant New York Times best seller), as well as the New York Times best selling children's book Marcel The Shell with Shoes On . Her feature film Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (which she co-wrote and starred in) was nominated for many awards, including a Critic's Choice, Golden Globe, and Academy Award. Jenny Slate lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter and dog. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The quirky humor of comedian Slate (Little Weirds) lights up these odd yet endearing essays, which trace her path to becoming a mother in the years after divorcing her first husband. Reflecting on the early days of dating her second husband, she recounts worrying whenever they were apart that he would lose interest in her, a feeling she gradually overcame through the strength of their connection. Two entries offer psychedelic accounts of her recurring dreams about a stork with "straw-like legs... strobing with filaments, threads of metallic light"; she interprets the creature's often gruesome deaths as symbolizing her anxieties about becoming a mother. Other selections send-up postpartum life, as when Slate writes in a faux letter to her doctor that her breasts were "dripping like mutant grapes from outer space." Another entry is styled as an obituary marking the death of Slate's former self, featuring the headline, "Woman dies of going the extra mile." Though Slate's eccentric comedy is a constant, she's not afraid to get heartfelt, as in the moving "Swan," where she meditates on losing her grandmother to dementia while raising her baby: "There is no way for us to have our loves without breathtaking pain, not because we love brutally but because we lose each other at different times." Funny, lyrical, and sometimes strange, these essays pulse with life. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME. (Oct.)

Letters to the Doctor: Stonehenge	3
Phase 1 Single
Light Bites	15
Letters to the Doctor: The Old-Fashioned Doctor	20
Single and Waiting for a Reply	26
Storm	27
Letters to the Doctor: Prescription	30
The Pamphlet	31
Phase 2 True Love
Letters to the Doctor: Love	39
True Love: Garlic Chicken	40
Letters to the Doctor: Dinner Party Seating	48
On and Off the Island	52
Phase 3 Pregnancy
We Have to Stop: Fantasy Psychology Session	63
Stork Dream: Scroll	70
The Drive-In	73
The Night Rope	83
The Raccoon	85
Excerpt 1 from the Play Schumacher	95
Stork Dream: Smash	100
Seal Scales	104
Raccoon Gossip	113
Vision of Water Column	119
The Quake	123
Birth Visualization of Stone House	126
Phase 4 Baby
Letters to the Doctor: Crack Running Down?	137
The Great Conjunction	138
The Stork Bite	145
Letters to the Doctor: Hair Nest	147
A Scream	154
Excerpt 2 from the Play Schumacher	155
The Garbage Package	165
Obituary 1	169
The Blessings from the Dishwasher	171
Letters to the Doctor: Going Crone	175
Obituary 2	179
Tuesday, 3:23 PM	180
Letters to the Doctor: A Clarification	181
The Inventory	183
Letters to the Doctor: Purple-Dark Hole 1	186
Headtrip	190
Letters to the Doctor: Purple-Dark Hole 2	197
Phase 5 Ongoing
The Swan	205
Lettie Schumacher Memorial Plaque	215
The Graduation Speech	216
Prayer: Fountain	220
Acknowledgments	223

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Table of Contents