You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey
2021
- nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction=2021-01-31
- racism
- humor, form, essays
- humor
- race relations
- african americans
- social conditions
- african american wit and humor
- anecdotes
- humor / form / essays
The story
Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey. From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.
What it’s like
Conversational and quick on the page, with the rhythm of two sisters talking over each other: short anecdotes, punchy asides, and a sibling banter that keeps swinging between mock-outrage and deadpan. The voice is warm and fast, the kind of prose you can read in a single sitting on a train or in a bath, each vignette ending on a line that lands like a sharp laugh. Underneath the jokes runs a steady, clear-eyed unease, since every story is a small indignity that happened to a real person in a Nebraska grocery store, a mall, or a donut shop, and the book never lets you forget the cumulative weight of being watched, doubted, or touched without asking. Intensity is low-to-moderate: no violence on the page beyond the retold moments of harassment and being followed by security, no gore, no sexual content, but plenty of sting in the racist remarks and the way ordinary people behave. The emotional arc is the affectionate closeness between two sisters who are each other's best audience, so the tone stays buoyant even when the stories turn bitter. It suits readers who want comedy with a backbone, anyone curious about everyday racism told by people who find it absurd and infuriating at once, and fans of sharp, first-person essay humor who like their laughs with a little gravity underneath.
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