In this hilarious collection of personal essays, New
York Times bestselling author Merrill Markoe reveals,
among other things, the secret formula for comedy: Start out
with a difficult mother, develop some classic teenage
insecurities, add a few relationships with narcissistic men,
toss in an unruly pack of selfish dogs, finish it off with
the kind of crystalline perspective that only comes from
years of navigating a roiling sea of unpleasant and
unappeasable people, and—voilà!—you’re funny!
But in
Cool, Calm & Contentious, Markoe also reveals
something more: herself. This is by far her most personal,
affecting collection yet—honest, unapologetic, often
painful, but always shot through with the bracing, wicked
sense of humor that has made her such a beloved and incisive
observer of life, both human and canine. In Cool, Calm
& Contentious, she goes there: from the
anal-retentive father who once spent ten minutes lecturing
Markoe’s forty-year-old, Ph.D.-wielding brother on how to
fold a napkin, to the eternally aggrieved mother who took
pleasure in being unpleasant to waiters and spent most of
her life, Markoe says, in “varying degrees of pissed off”;
from the way she surrendered her virginity as a freshman in
college (to her, it was “something to be gotten rid of
quickly, then never discussed again, like body odor”), to
why, later in life, she ultimately came to find dogs so much
more appealing than humans, Markoe holds nothing back. It’s
all here, in all its messy, poignant glory, and told the way
only Merril Markoe knows how—with honesty, wit, and bite.
Cool, Calm & Contentious offers something
for everyone—fans of humorous essays, fans of memoir, fans
of great writing and finely drawn characters, fans of dogs,
fans of talking dogs, and fans of reading about mothers who
are so difficult and demanding they actually make you feel
good about your own life. But most of all, this book is for
the many fans of Merrill Markoe, who will finally get a
chance to learn what makes her tick—and what makes her so
funny and wise.
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