So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know

I loved Retta in Parks & Recreations and enjoyed a brief glimpse of her appearance on a talk show when she described blasting classical music as she was going through a drive thru. Good Girls is in my queue unwatched for now, but I didn’t wait as long to read Retta’s book, So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know. Her book of essays is a memoir about her life: mostly thematic, roughly chronological, always hilarious, occasionally repetitive.
What Retta lacks in brilliant prose, she more than makes up for it in personality and joy. So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know conveys her distinct voice and has considerable momentum in propelling the reader rapidly through her book laughing the entire way. Considering that I read the majority of Retta’s book during the last two weeks of my beloved cat dying and still audibly laughed, it is probably even funnier than I think.
If I had to summarize the dominant theme of So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know, it is enthusiasm. Like people with powers in movies and television shows, performers who become famous can become prone to being maudlin and dwell on the downside of their hard earned or fortuitous success as if it is a burden, but Retta is so excited about every moment that the glee is infectious. I’m not even into celebrity culture, but I would (verbally) fight someone if they dared to call her shallow for reveling in being able to afford nice things, drunkenly hob knob with Michael Fassbender and Robert Redford or exploit the benefits of her fame by scoring free tickets to sold out events. She went from doing college circuit comedy to gaining fame in a supporting role on a network sitcom thus literally embodying Konstantin Stanislavski’s words, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” She made an investment on a seemingly undervalued stock and got huge dividends back. How many of us can say that we took the talent that Jesus gave us and multiplied it in spite of numerous odds, some self-imposed and others systematic. Unlike many performers, she isn’t above her work. She unabashedly adores popular culture, “I didn’t even realize it until I sat down to write this chapter, but television has been a mirror into my life and what I hold important.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Retta is a classy person raised to conform to her immigrant parents’ work ethics and respectability politics while also gleefully abandoning the parts that did not work for her and rapidly adopting mainstream American values of cursing and prioritizing fun to pave her own way. She is so relatable because whether you’re all business or a partier, she has explored every aspect of each life and walked away with something from every realm. Her career may be in comedy, but her back up career was being a doctor. Her day job was being a chemist. If the American dream is a lie told to many who never achieve it after decades of hard work and discipline, Retta worked smart and hard to make it come true, but not by sacrificing her spirit. You may not thoroughly enjoy the way that Retta decided to assemble those pieces, but you have to admire that she made it work, is aware that the fortune could stop flowing at any moment and openly acknowledges the insecurities that she accumulated and learned to discard along the way. If you’re an aspiring entertainer, this book could be required reading if you need a little encouragement to keep pushing forward.
So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know isn’t a dishy, gossip book. If she has something negative to say, she immediately makes her targets anonymous or compilations of people. In my opinion, she is lightly political though definitively taking a hard stance against Presidon’t, but that stance makes her a normal human being, not someone who is trying to make any deep change in the world beyond her sphere of expertise. She is black so she is forced to address racism, and she owns her mistakes when she falls short, but her goal isn’t to be a force for good. She is simply a regular human being who happens to have a high profile.
Some chapters in So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know are devoted to the things that she loves: coffee, designer bags. When the writers for Parks & Recreations made the tagline, “Treat Yo Self,” was it an adaptation of reality or a self-fulfilling prophecy? Consumerism seems less negative when she wisely displays it next to her humble beginnings without shame. Like every aspect of her life, it is a celebration. “[I]t was a long time before I gave myself permission to have nice things because NICE=EXPENSIVE.” If you do read her book, pay special attention to the front and back cover, which is a brilliant piece of meta commentary of the life of a star. In the front cover photograph, she looks perfect. In the back cover photograph, we see how the shoot was made complete with full disclosure that the dress and hair are being held together with a variety of clips and nothing actually fits or looks perfect behind the scenes. It is that level of honesty and transparency while still reveling in the parts that are glamourous which make Retta such an engrossing persona.
So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know may not be the best written book. It seems like she actually did write the book and did not dictate it though I would have guessed the latter if she hadn’t written anything to the contrary. Still unlike many professional writers, she was still successful in putting herself on the page and conveying her distinct, unique perspective without losing anything in translation. Her book will brighten your day without insulting your intelligence and encourage you to embrace the joy in all the perks of your life. I highly recommend it.