Something That May Shock and Discredi..., Daniel M. Lavery
Something That May Shock and Discredi..., Daniel M. Lavery
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Something That May Shock and Discredit You

Author: Daniel M. Lavery

Narrator: Daniel M. Lavery

Unabridged: 6 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/11/2020


Synopsis

“One of our smartest, most inventive humor writers, Ortberg combines bathos and the devotional into a revelation.” —Jordy Rosenberg, The New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, writer of Slate’s “Dear Prudence” column, and cofounder of The Toast comes a hilarious and stirring collection of essays and cultural observations spanning pop culture—from the endearingly popular to the staggeringly obscure.

Daniel M. Lavery is known for blending genres, forms, and sources to develop fascinating new hybrids—from lyric rants to horror recipes to pornographic scripture. In his most personal work to date, he turns his attention to the essay, offering vigorous and laugh-out-loud funny accounts of both popular and highbrow culture while mixing in meditations on gender transition, family dynamics, and the many meanings of faith.

From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, Nora Ephron, Apollo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a hilarious and emotionally exhilarating compendium that combines personal history with cultural history to make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew. It further establishes Lavery as one of the most innovative and engaging voices of his generation—and it may just change the way you think about Lord Byron forever.

About Daniel M. Lavery

Daniel M. Lavery is the “Dear Prudence” advice columnist at Slate, the cofounder of The Toast, and the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and The Merry Spinster.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emily

I think this might be the best trans (or "trans-adjacent," as Daniel Lavery would probably prefer) book I've ever read? It brims with thoughtfulness, with joy, and with life. As always, I think I am not as in love with the classics as the author, but I enjoyed watching him discover anew what he love......more

Goodreads review by Eilonwy

If you ever read the late, lamented website The Toast, then you’re familiar with Daniel Lavery’s love of literary parody. If you weren’t familiar with that site, then this collection of essays will seem even more all over the map than they already are. Don’t get me wrong -- I mostly enjoyed this boo......more

Goodreads review by Morgan

To say, "this reinvents the entire trans memoir genre" would be to completely undersell Daniel Mallory Lavery's Something That May Shock and Discredit You. Rather than a straight-forward transition account, full of its attendant clichés (I have always known, why when I was a child I was troubling ge......more

Goodreads review by Jessica

If you are new to Lavery's writing you will find this book either very confusing or immediately and absolutely your shit. I don't know if there's much inbetween. If you were a reader of The Toast (RIP) you probably know to expect a whole lot of very specific revamps of old and new stories and pieces......more

Goodreads review by Renata

I feel like Daniel Ortberg (now Lavery)'s stuff can be pretty hit or miss with me, and that's fine--I think his ideal audience is probably people who, like. him were raised Christian and/or are trans. There are tons of references that I just don't get, and that's fine, I'm sure they're making a lot......more


Quotes

"Fans of Ortberg will welcome his signature wit in this impossible-to-classify audiobook. Though newcomers may feel slightly adrift, Ortberg's narration is undeniably powerful. He combines memoir, Biblical exegesis, and trans retellings of fiction and myth into a book about gender and transition unlike any other. His narration is multilayered and alive. One moment his voice scrapes raw; the next, it's full of delight. He'll have you laughing one moment and weeping the next. His voice swings from vulnerable to silly, tender to dry. Sometimes his irreverence shines through—as in his voicing of Greek gods in a trans reimagining of Athena's birth. Sometimes he speaks with breath-catching honesty about his uncertainty surrounding transition. Every moment of this audiobook is a joy to listen to." —Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award, AudioFile Magazine

“A delightful hybrid of a book…blends genres with expert facility….Throughout, Ortberg's writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he's always definitive where it counts….You'll laugh, you'll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Ortberg brings the full force of his wit and literary depth to this genre-bending essay collection, [which] intersperses searingly honest passages about his journey as a transgender man with laugh-out-loud funny literary pastiche….an often hilarious, sometimes discomfiting, but invariably honest account of one man’s becoming.” ––Publishers Weekly

“Like all of his work, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a stand-alone pillar in Ortberg’s remarkable canon, one in which the lines typically drawn around topic and genre are obliterated, resulting in a wide-open field of possibility.” —Electric Literature