I grew up in the suburbs, and the comedy you’re exposed to there is so generic, and it was tackling subjects I had no interest in—comfortable relationships among privileged urbanites, or whatever—and then I discovered Woody Allen was writing comedy about, like, Freud and Prussia. So that’s what I do now, I just write about what I’m interested in and hope that on the Venn diagram of interests, some readers will be interested as well.

Он занудный немного

читать дальшеDo you feel additional pressure on the book, or your written work in general, because of your pre-existing public profile?

I feel pressure all the time, irrespective of any of that. I feel a high base-level of anxiety about all things. That’s what drove me to write the book in the first place, and that’s what pushes me to do my best. Listen, it certainly gives me an advantage. I would say the advantage I get for having a public profile is that my stuff will kind of go to the top of the pile, but if the stuff is not good it will never be published.

Some of the stories in the book—particularly the family section—either are or appear to be very personal. Does your family mind being fictionalized?

My mother only minds that she has to tell her friends all the time that the characters are not literally based on her. My parents are normal, funny, nice people, so a lot of the characterizations of them are based on worst-case scenarios. It’s just not really that funny to write about a normal, healthy family.