Writer and performer Beth Lisick is both significantly stranger and more self-aware than the average person. She is also very funny, and in Yokohoma Threeway, she combines these characteristics to create a detailed catalogue of her transgressions, from hip exploits in alternative Berkeley to the most quotidian of human dilemmas. It's as though there are two Lisicks: one who throws napkins at obnoxious strangers and spars with children, and another who is forever floating above the scene, judging, recording, smirking and smiling.
While Yokohama Threeway maintains the levity of Lisick's prior work, including the comic memoir Everybody into the Pool, it stirs up legitimate questions about the nature of remorse. Some of her shames are accidental and public, such as a skirt caught in her underwear at a work party. Some are intentional and private, as in the tacky sexual exploit that gives this book its title. It raises the question: Do intent or secrecy affect shame's impact? Does one sting more, or last longer? In one story, Lisick blows off a condescending mother who's attempting to hire her to lead a children's book club. Here, the embarrassment of behaving rudely is mingled with the pride of standing one's ground.
Reading through Lisick's shames, it's easy to reminisce on our own. It's not nearly as easy, however, to spin each story with the uplifting wit that she brings to her writing. --Annie Atherton