Tig Notaro’s set at the Largo Club in August 2012 has become the stuff of stand-up legend. It’s the show she began by saying: “Good evening, hello. I have cancer.” Louis CK was performing that night and acclaimed it as one of the greatest sets he had ever seen. The ad hoc recording went on a be Grammy-nominated and a best-seller.
Suddenly Notaro went from being a respected comedian to being a talked-about and much-in-demand comedian. Her new book tells her story leading up to that moment and then beyond. It’s a short book but a great read, laying bare a year when Notaro was hit by a triple whammy - an infection that nearly killed her, her mother’s sudden death and then, the punchline in the darkest rule of three ever, breast cancer.
Notaro tells her story with unedited honesty. Did I mention that she broke up with her girlfriend in 2012 too? She doesn’t milk her problems for sympathy and, as she did onstage that night, she finds humour in being frank about them. As a youngster she had what became known as “Tig Luck” - she had, for instance, a knack of finding money on the street. Suddenly that luck seemed to have run out. Life is simply random. We foolishly look for patterns that might suggest it isn't.
We also get some fascinating back story building up to 2012. Notaro grew up in Texas and was not exactly a model pupil. She failed exams and eventually realised she could drop out of school rather than simply be kept in eighth grade indefinitely. Her mother was hardly a model mother, a bit of a hippy who would be packing Tig off to class having stayed up all night partying.
If you know Notaro’s story you will know how things panned out, but this is still worth reading. The story is both moving and laugh out loud funny. This is also an intriguing book for comedy buffs. Before the Largo gig Notaro was the kind of comic who would hone her act to the point of perfection. In one famous routine she simply dragged her stool across the stage, relishing the scraping noise it made. It looked spontaneous when I saw her do it but I later found out it wasn't. Yet that landmark Largo show – her best ever – was put together in a week. What does that say about the craft of comedy? If nothing else it proves that cancer can be a great motivator.
And as another side note, until reading this book I knew Louis CK was at that gig but I didn’t realise he was headlining. Or that Bill Burr was also on the bill, so Notaro was third from top. They have some pretty good line-ups in American comedy clubs sometimes, don’t they?
Buy I'm Just a Person: My year of death, cancer and epiphany here.
