The other night I had a wicked sore throat and couldn’t sleep. (The next day I discovered I had strep. Yay.) I grabbed a book I knew would be a quick read, an enjoyable read, something that might help me drift to sleep, and headed downstairs so I didn’t disturb my family. And three hours later I finished the book, Julia Sweeney’s God Said Ha!
Several years ago I heard Sweeney’s stand-up routine, Letting Go of God, on This American Life. I was riveted. She was honest and hilarious, despite the fact that she discussed her 30-year-old brother dying of Lymphoma and her own recovery from a rare form of cervical cancer. (The two cancers coincided. She had a hysterectomy right after her brother died.) My hope was that her memoir would mirror her stand-up routine. Unfortunately, the memoir was the set-up for the stand-up. In other words, I read all about the turmoil of her life during her brother’s illness, but there wasn’t much discussion of her loss of faith. Oh well, it was an engaging book, not fabulously written but funny and harrowing.
Julia Sweeney, courtesy of the This American Life website
Cross that book off the list. Now, to download the stand-up.
One question came from this reading: if Sweeney’s mother slapped her as a teenager for repeating the words of a priest who suggested that heaven might just be an instant, the instant when we die, what the heck did she do when Sweeney outed herself as an atheist?
P.S. If you follow the link to Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, you can see clips from her movie of the same name and the song on the website is sung by the most awesome Jill Sobule.
P.P.S. If you follow the link to This American Life it will take you directly to the Julia Sweeney segment of the show entitled “Godless America.”
Trivia: God Said Ha! was also made into a movie, directed by Sweeney’s longtime friend Quentin Tarrantino.
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