Louie Anderson (1) (1953–2022)

This is a mental health memoir (recommended by Melody Beattie); it is the memoir of an adult child. I’m also an adult child, although Louie is in at least two major ways different than me: he’s my parents’ age, and was raised working-class. In that sense it was broadening and good for me, but since I’m so different I’ll just comment briefly about myself.

Like I said, I’m an adult child; my mom’s an alcoholic. My dad’s larger-than-life, more vague in his instability; mom is more personal, more diagnosable. When that hyper-saccharine meter runs out, the angry drunk takes her place, you know. I guess most of the time she (over-)compensates.

This has had at least two important effects on me, one specific and one nonspecific. The general effect is that, since growing up school was my safe place and home was my unsafe place, I’ve subconsciously, permanently (?) divided my life into a safe-intellect sphere and an unsafe-relationships sphere. (Although I don’t study geometry, but basically other people.) Also, when I’m away from home in the late afternoon to early evening, I get this vague feeling of anxiety, related to this hidden idea like, ‘It’s time to go home from school now, but I don’t know what I’ll find at home when I get there.’ That’s an adult child—you go right back to that disempowered child place.

I don’t blame either of my parents for this, at least consciously; (although I do have kinda a hidden same-gender parent struggle with my dad, although I’d never willingly hurt him, you know). I just pray that one day my Higher Power, Jesus, will heal me completely, and until then, I’ll have interludes of peace and be able to live a (by my definition) productive, useful life.

…. In a forthcoming review (incidentally of a book by another Norwegian), I dwelt on the inner approval-seeking nun in me, my inappropriate self-assertion, grasping. I guess this book is the other side of the coin: peace. Louie reports having peace at his father’s grave; my relationship with my mother isn’t as set in stone as she’s fortunately still alive, but I guess I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t see her as something more than a drunk, and the source of the “bad blood” in my veins!… (meer)

GOODBYE JUMBO ... HELLO CRUEL WORLD, by Louie Anderson.
I picked up this book at a thrift store a year or more ago. I read it today as I was in between 'real' books. Turns out Anderson's story of his life-long struggles with his weight, self-esteem, and a dysfunctional family - an alcoholic abusive father, a nurturing but enabling mother, and ten siblings - is pretty damn real itself.

It's a slight book as memoirs go, and a quick read; but it does contain some pretty important truths about fat people (Anderson uses the 'f' word freely, so I will too), how they got the way they are and how much they often tend to hate themselves. Anderson is trying to work out his own self-hate and transform it into self-love, all the while still struggling with the recent loss of his mother and unresolved issues with his late father. (I have not read his first book, DEAR DAD.)

Here's a sample of how he tries to explain that 'fat and lazy' don't necessarily go together.

"So there's the fallacy. Fat people aren't lazy. It takes immense practice and energy to plan our day, to eat without anyone seeing us, to pretend we aren't hungry, to sneak and cheat without being caught. The truth is, it takes a lot of work to get your weight up to three hundred and fifty pounds and then keep it there."

So yeah, he's a comedian and he's still joking, but yet he's not. He then says: "It also requires a large threshold for pain."

Because while this is a book that appears to be light reading, it's really not. It's a story of a life filled with pain and yearning to be normal, to be loved. By the book's end, Anderson seems to have reached some kind of peace with himself and his family. I wonder if it lasted. The book was published over twenty years ago, but it's still a pretty relevant read, particularly, I suspect for people who, like Louie, are obese and in pain. It seems ironic that so many talented comics and comedians - people like the late Robin Williams - have such a dark, pain-filled interior life. I remember being surprised at how serious Steve Martin's memoir, BORN STANDING UP, turned out to be. Anderson's is too, but it seemed just a bit too pat, or maybe just too short, to pack as strong a punch as it might have. But I'll recommend it.… (meer)