My life as a goddess: a memoir through (un)popular culture

Game show host, former Chelsea Lately panelist, and very good dancer Branum's vulnerable debut is a series of love letters to the people and pop culture that helped him survive growing up as an outsize, closeted, too-smart bumpkin in Yuba City. Among those who receive Branum's thanks are Greek and Hindu goddesses; Canada; his Punjabi best high-school gal pal; Knott's Berry Farm; the 1980 World Book Encyclopedia; his vintage-movie loving mother; Tracy Turnblad; Bewitched; Seder; Babette's Feast; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; and more. Branum buries the (likely contractually obligated) insider's dish on working with Handler, Joan Rivers, and Mindy Kaling in an essay titled Three Women and a Multinational Corporation. The essays lose momentum toward the collection's end, as it moves into more boilerplate essays about mostly making it as a midlevel comedy writer. However, by then, readers aren't there for the career advice or name-drops but sticking around for the sharp voice of a hyperliterate, queer giant from a rat-infested farm town who can dance, really dance.--Whitfield-Smith, Louisa Copyright 2010 Booklist

Comedian Branum, known for his appearances on Chelsea Lately, combines sharp insight and self-deprecating humor in this sparkling collection of essays about life as a fat gay comic. "If you are at all interested in being a goddess, may I suggest starting this book by believing in yourself?" he writes, setting the theme for his story beginning with his childhood. Growing up in the farm town of Yuba City, Calif. ("not the good part of California"), Branum always felt out of place, particularly with a wild sister and an abusive, controlling father. He enrolled at the Univ. of California at Berkeley as a Republican, but the liberal setting influenced him. He next attended law school at the University of Minnesota, where, working at a small legal publication where his "job was to keep track of how much a dead baby was worth," he developed his dark sense of humor. With sparkling prose, the author offers an inspiring treatise on the accomplishments of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with U.S. v. Virginia "she got to write the gender equal protection decision she'd been asking for all those years"), observations on the anti-gay sentiments in 1983's Eddie Murphy: Delirious (which he enjoyed as a young adult but disliked as he got older), and a heartfelt musing on being a closeted gay man dating women, and his own coming out. This is an incisive and witty memoir. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

With a foreword by actor and comedian Mindy Kaling, this collection of essays by stand-up comedian and actor Branum (Talk Show the Game Show; Chelsea Lately) is a humorous memoir full of anecdotes, trivia, and entertaining observations on American pop culture. Branum offers insight into the life of a gay, overweight man finding his place in the modern world, including taking a "wrong turn" by enrolling in law school, coming out to his mother, writing an article as a Berkeley student journalist that resulted in a visit by the Secret Service, and, finally, earning fame as a comedy writer. The book is rife with footnotes, containing both bits of trivia and Branum's sidebar commentary, adding context. While the footnotes could be potentially distracting, readers will get used to them quickly and even look forward to them in subsequent chapters. The author's intellect and vocabulary, paired with the extensive footnotes, might make the book slightly less accessible to mainstream readers than its contemporaries (such as Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?), but its wit and short chapters will keep readers going. VERDICT A funny account that most readers of modern comedic memoirs will enjoy.-Cori Wilhelm, SUNY Canton Coll. of Tech. Lib. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A gay stand-up comedian considers his life through personal essays that also ruminate on problems and paradoxes of modern American culture.Branum was a born misfit who found early solace in Greek mythology. He especially loved Leto, a beleaguered goddess who taught him the importance of believing in himself when no one else did. Half-Jewish, overweight, and "intellectually aggressive," the author struggled to find a place in his hometown of Yuba City, where Oklahoma Dust Bowl descendants fired "guns into the air and yell[ed] racial slurs" at Indian immigrants. Branum educated himself about the outside world through reading and watching old sitcoms. Suburban witch Samantha Stephens, of Bewitched fame, became his symbol for the magic he sought in order to escape a hated blue-collar existence. By high school, Branum could no longer deny the desires that had surfaced in his early teens. Still, he remained closeted. He found comfort in friendship with three Punjabi girls trapped into asexuality by the conflicting demands of their culture. At Berkeley, he wrote for the humor magazine, ran for student office as a member of his own party (CUM, the "Cal Undergraduate Masturbators"), and wrote an article about Chelsea Clinton that resulted in a visit from the Secret Service. He attended law school at the University of Minnesota only to realize that he "had no business" becoming a lawyer and mimicking straightness. After graduation, Branum stumbled into adult functionality, discovered his passion for stand-up comedy, and moved to Los Angeles. There, he worked his way into writing jobs for Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, all while learning to love himself in West Hollywood, the "ketamine-stoked crucible of shallow gay self-consciousness and derision." Keenly observant and intelligent, Branum's book not only offers uproarious insights into walking paths less traveled, but also into what self-acceptance means in a world still woefully intolerant of difference.Wickedly smart, funny, and witty. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Game show host, former Chelsea Lately panelist, and very good dancer Branum's vulnerable debut is a series of love letters to the people and pop culture that helped him survive growing up as an outsize, closeted, too-smart bumpkin in Yuba City. Among those who receive Branum's thanks are Greek and Hindu goddesses; Canada; his Punjabi best high-school gal pal; Knott's Berry Farm; the 1980 World Book Encyclopedia; his vintage-movie loving mother; Tracy Turnblad; Bewitched; Seder; Babette's Feast; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; and more. Branum buries the (likely contractually obligated) insider's dish on working with Handler, Joan Rivers, and Mindy Kaling in an essay titled "Three Women and a Multinational Corporation." The essays lose momentum toward the collection's end, as it moves into more boilerplate essays about mostly making it as a midlevel comedy writer. However, by then, readers aren't there for the career advice or name-drops but sticking around for the sharp voice of a hyperliterate, queer giant from a rat-infested farm town who can dance, really dance. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

With a foreword by actor and comedian Mindy Kaling, this collection of essays by stand-up comedian and actor Branum (Talk Show the Game Show; Chelsea Lately) is a humorous memoir full of anecdotes, trivia, and entertaining observations on American pop culture. Branum offers insight into the life of a gay, overweight man finding his place in the modern world, including taking a "wrong turn" by enrolling in law school, coming out to his mother, writing an article as a Berkeley student journalist that resulted in a visit by the Secret Service, and, finally, earning fame as a comedy writer. The book is rife with footnotes, containing both bits of trivia and Branum's sidebar commentary, adding context. While the footnotes could be potentially distracting, readers will get used to them quickly and even look forward to them in subsequent chapters. The author's intellect and vocabulary, paired with the extensive footnotes, might make the book slightly less accessible to mainstream readers than its contemporaries (such as Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?), but its wit and short chapters will keep readers going. VERDICT A funny account that most readers of modern comedic memoirs will enjoy.—Cori Wilhelm, SUNY Canton Coll. of Tech. Lib. (c) Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Comedian Branum, known for his appearances on Chelsea Lately, combines sharp insight and self-deprecating humor in this sparkling collection of essays about life as a fat gay comic. "If you are at all interested in being a goddess, may I suggest starting this book by believing in yourself?" he writes, setting the theme for his story beginning with his childhood. Growing up in the farm town of Yuba City, Calif. ("not the good part of California"), Branum always felt out of place, particularly with a wild sister and an abusive, controlling father. He enrolled at the Univ. of California at Berkeley as a Republican, but the liberal setting influenced him. He next attended law school at the University of Minnesota, where, working at a small legal publication where his "job was to keep track of how much a dead baby was worth," he developed his dark sense of humor. With sparkling prose, the author offers an inspiring treatise on the accomplishments of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with U.S. v. Virginia "she got to write the gender equal protection decision she'd been asking for all those years"), observations on the anti-gay sentiments in 1983's Eddie Murphy: Delirious (which he enjoyed as a young adult but disliked as he got older), and a heartfelt musing on being a closeted gay man dating women, and his own coming out. This is an incisive and witty memoir. (July)