Something That May Shock and Discredit You

Daniel M. Lavery, Daniel Mallory Ortberg

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781982105228
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• eBook ISBN:
  9781982105235

“One of our smartest, most inventive humor writers, Ortberg combines bathos and the devotional into a revelation.” —Jordy Rosenberg, The New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, writer of Slate’s “Dear Prudence” column, and cofounder of The Toast comes a hilarious and stirring collection of essays and cultural observations spanning pop culture—from the endearingly popular to the staggeringly obscure.

Daniel M. Lavery is known for blending genres, forms, and sources to develop fascinating new hybrids—from lyric rants to horror recipes to pornographic scripture. In his most personal work to date, he turns his attention to the essay, offering vigorous and laugh-out-loud funny accounts of both popular and highbrow culture while mixing in meditations on gender transition, family dynamics, and the many meanings of faith.

From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, Nora Ephron, Apollo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a hilarious and emotionally exhilarating compendium that combines personal history with cultural history to make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew. It further establishes Lavery as one of the most innovative and engaging voices of his generation—and it may just change the way you think about Lord Byron forever.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened without You? I Did.
• Interlude I: Chapter Titles from the On the Nose, Po-Faced Transmasculine Memoir I Am Trying Not to Write
• Chapter 2: My Brothers, My Brothers, My Brothers’ Keepers, My Brothers, My Brothers, My Brothers and Me
• Interlude II: Help Me, Brother, or I Sink
• Chapter 3: Apollo and Hyacinthus Die Playing Ultimate Frisbee, and I Died Watching Teenage Boys Play Video Games
• Interlude III: Lord Byron Has a Birthday and Takes His Leave
• Chapter 4: Reasons for Transitioning, in Order
• Interlude IV: If You Can’t Parallel Park, You Have to Get a Sex Change
• Chapter 5: Unwanted Coming-Out Disorder
• Chapter 6: The Stages of Not Going on T
• Interlude V: Oh Lacanian Philosopher We Love You Get Up
• Chapter 7: The Several Mortes D’Arthur
• Interlude VI: Cosmopolitan Magazine Cover Stories for Bewildered Future Trans Men Living in the Greater Chicago Area Between the Years 1994–2002
• Interlude VII: Marcus Aurelius Prepares for the New Year
• Chapter 8: Evelyn Waugh and the Opposite of Communion
• Interlude VIII: Jacob and the Angel Wrasslin’ Till Noon at Least
• Chapter 9: Mary and Martha and Jesus and the Dishes
• Interlude IX: Columbo in Six Positions
• Interlude X
• Chapter 10: The Golden Girls and the Mountains in the Sea
• Chapter 11: Captain James T. Kirk Is a Beautiful Lesbian, and I’m Not Sure Exactly How to Explain That
• Interlude XI: Rilke Takes a Turn
• Chapter 12: Duckie from Pretty in Pink Is Also a Beautiful Lesbian and I Can Prove It with the Intensity of My Feelings
• Interlude XII: I Have a Friend Who Thinks Umbrellas Are Enemies of the Collective Good, and I Have a Sneaking Suspicion They May Be Right
• Chapter 13: Sir Gawain Just Wants to Leave Castle Make-Out
• Interlude XIII: No One Understands Henry VIII Like I Do
• Chapter 14: “I Love Your Vibe,” and Other Things I’ve Said to Men
• Interludex IV: House Hunters
• Chapter 15: And His Name Shall Be Called Something Hard to Remember
• Chapter 16: Pirates at the Funeral: “It Feels Like Someone Died,” but Someone Actually Didn’t
• Interlude XV: Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck, Transmasculine Edition
• Chapter 17: Powerful T4T Energy in Steve Martin’s The Jerk
• Interlude XVI: Did You Know That Athena Used to Be a Tomboy?
• Chapter 18: It’s Hard to Feel Sad Reading Hans Christian Andersen Because It’s Just Another Story About a Bummed-Out Candlestick That Loves a Broom and Dies
• Interlude XVII: Dirtbag Sappho
• Chapter 19: Dante Runs into Beatrice in Paradise
• Interlude XVIII: How I Intend to Comport Myself When I Have Abs Someday
• Chapter 20: Paul and Second Timothy: The Transmasculine Epistles
• Interlude XIX: Something Nice Happens to Oedipus
• Chapter 21: Destry Rides Again, or Jimmy Stewart Has a Body and So Do I
• Interlude XX: The Matriarchs of Avonlea Begrudgingly Accept Your Transition / Men of Anne of Green Gables Experience
• Chapter 22: The Opposite of Baptism
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright