Bonnie McFarlane begins her memoir You're Better Than Me with a confession of sorts: "How I Failed at Being a Serial Killer, or Why I Am a Comedian." The chapter title says much about her sense of humor: dark, off-color and deeply self-deprecating. Breaking down the ways in which her rural Canadian childhood resembled that of the average serial killer's, according to Wikipedia, she recounts eating her pet cow, punching the local bully and suffering from extreme social anxiety--a condition that, oddly, improved only when she tried stand-up. Among fellow comedians (who tended to be as weird or weirder than she thought herself), she learned to transmute her idiosyncrasies into entertainment and, in doing so, finally felt at home. Taking inspiration from other outspoken female comics such as Sarah Silverman and Janeane Garofalo, McFarlane worked her way up from a rough Canadian bar scene to the ultra competitive clubs of New York City, eventually appearing on Last Comic Standing and Late Night with David Letterman.
You're Better Than Me is published under the imprint of Anthony Bourdain and, like his debut memoir, Kitchen Confidential, it is essentially an homage to the love of work. Describing her first experiences with stand-up as "horrible, scary, pathetic, and thrilling," McFarlane is nonetheless drawn to her chosen profession like a moth to a flame (or, in her words, an addict). While she may joke about bombing sets and taking shots before shows, her commitment to the craft is unwavering. Now settled in New Jersey, she runs the podcast My Wife Hates Me with her husband, Rich Vos, a fellow comic. --Annie Atherton