Review by Booklist Review
Formerly the bandleader for The Late Late Show with James Corden, Watts brings his oddball humor and crackling genius to this freewheeling, unfiltered, and surprisingly sincere memoir. A German-born, European-reared American child of Black and French heritage, Watts recounts his early years bouncing across continents until his family finally settled in Montana. The influence of Watts' multilingual household shows up in playful, totally original turns of phrase, while references to French performers (Édith Piaf and Zizi Jeanmaire) roll off the tongue as easily as pop name-drops, such as when Watts describes his mother as "a French, redheaded Jennifer Beals in Flashdance welding away at the steel mill." As he narrates a life defined by counterculture, mind-expanding substances, and wildly experimental music, Watts includes silly asides on topics like shoehorns and waistcoats while also offering QR codes that link to original pieces for piano and imagining a magic typewriter that changes font size and style according to the typist's mood (an effect that manifests throughout the book). Fans of Watts' improvisational comedy and genre-blending music will enjoy the artist's backstory.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Comedian and musician Watts debuts with an animated love letter to Great Falls, Mont., that recounts his tangled coming-of-age there. In 1976, when Watts was four, he moved with his Black American father and white French mother from Madrid to Great Falls after his father was assigned to a nearby Air Force base. In junior high, competitive drama competitions gave Watts his first taste of onstage success, and through high school--even as he took up smoking weed, chugging Robitussin, and participating in acts of vandalism--he never stopped chasing that rush, consistently playing in bands and performing bizarre, Andy Kaufman--style improv and stand-up comedy. After high school, Watts set off for Seattle, where he joined the band Maktub, and then for New York City, where he gigged at comedy clubs until his star rose and he started making nightly appearances on The Late, Late Show. He ties it all together with a third-act return to Great Falls to care for his dying mother, during which he unpacks the influence Montana had on his life and career, and concludes, "there's no place better." Watts is a droll, endearing narrator, delivering his account with the rapid-fire patter of a good improv act. Budding performers and comedy fans alike will find much to love.Agent: David Larabell, CAA. (Oct.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Growing up, comedian and musician Watts consistently felt like an oddball, a situation that was amplified by his being a biracial, suspender-wearing, French-speaking new kid who landed in Great Falls, MT, in the 1980s. In this distinctive memoir, Watts narrates his recollections about growing up as a post-punk "weirdo" in Great Falls and becoming a successful mainstream performer, if still a perennial misfit. He treats listeners to various accents, multiple languages, and, of course, musical interludes as he goes from feeling like an outcast to learning to fit in, chameleon-like, as he grew older. To describe this as merely a memoir does not do Watts justice. He interweaves personal narratives (about connecting with a found family of people like him and discovering his passion for improv comedy and music) with surreal asides, such as "An Open Letter to Axl Rose's Hair" and "Ode to a Grown-Up Pippi Longstocking." Watts regularly breaks the fourth wall, inviting listeners to share in the audio experience and echoing the stylistic elements of his live performances that have made him a cornerstone of the alt-comedy scene. VERDICT Part memoir, part performance, part comedy riff, this vibrant audiobook is not to be missed.--Laura Hammond
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A pleasingly offbeat memoir of growing up biracial on the Montana plains. Watts, a comedian and house bandleader for the Late Late Show With James Corden, writes of his boyhood and teenage years in Great Falls, an Air Force town along the Missouri River that helped shape his future life as "a musician, comedian, and consummate weirdo." The author was at first daunted by Montana's trademark big sky, "so huge it felt like it could swallow me up at any moment," but he soon came to be at home in a place that, in its own way, accepted him for who he was, even though he was "one of nine Black kids" in his high school and thus "an unknown quantity." Early on in life, he writes, "I absorbed the reality of my jumbled identity, and I embraced it." Among memories of star-crossed teen romance, the donning of various masks of identity--e.g., "the sensitive James Bond, the funny James Bond, the James Bond who respected women" and Duckie of John Hughes film fame--and occasional forays into behavior that he is sometimes reticent to discuss (not that it stops him from writing candidly), Watts deftly describes the formative 1980s pop cultural landmarks that formed him. Although his hometown had its shortcomings, quickly revealed once he took up residence after high school in Seattle and then Los Angeles, he writes, affectionately, that it allowed him to be whatever he wanted to be--which, in the end, turned out to be "weird, even among other weird people." It all makes for a lively, endlessly entertaining rejoinder to Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City with a dash of Questlove for good measure. Watts captures a once-fresh era now rapidly receding into historical memory. Fans of Watts will revel in this enjoyable stroll into the past, and those new to him could have no better introduction. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
