I don't watch much television, but I will admit that if I can't sleep, there is a remote next to me, and no one else is around to act as witness, I will flip to Comedy Central in search of Chelsea Lately and a dose of Handler's caustic wit.
I'm generally a tough crowd when it comes to comedy writing, but I found myself having to read passages of My Horizontal Life out loud to others. And if no one else was around I'd have to tell the cat about them. And if she wasn't around, I'd just have to read them aloud to myself to believe they were really there on the page.
I suppose Handler's writing is not funny -- she makes the same Michael Bolton joke at least twice and most of her others, like a "short bus" reference, are old and tired -- so much as it is outrageous. As much as we'd all love to believe we are above such things, I don't think any of us could pass up the chance to read about a woman who goes to a party and takes home the midget wearing the sombrero full of chips and dip, then has to explain his naked presence to her Mormon sister the next morning. And who but Handler would end up naked from the waist down, in an M&M costume from the waist up, hanging with her legs out her kitchen window in front of her ex-boyfriend/landlord?
I won't give any more of My Horizontal Life away, except to say that it is Sex and the City with more booze, drugs, and weight obsession, and without the supportive female relationships. But Handler is funny to read, as long as you don't have to share a toilet seat with her.
Handler, Chelsea. My Horizontal Life. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005. 213 pp.
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