Wow, No Thank You.: Essays

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“Into the Gross”-“Are You Familiar With My Work?”

“Hysterical!”-“Detachment Parenting”

“Season 1, Episode 1”-“An Extremely Specific Guide to Publishing a Book”

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Self-Deprecation

From her initial essay, in which she describes herself as a slovenly dreamer who squanders the better part of the day in inactivity, to her final essay, in which she describes herself as accidentally stumbling into the career of a bestselling author, Irby denigrates herself continually. There is no essay in which self-deprecation is not a key element of the author’s prose. Broadly, Irby criticizes herself for being socially incompetent, financially inept, lazy, undisciplined, materialistic, and basically unconcerned about all these shortcomings. She accepts the fact that she is unacceptable. To an extent, she blames her deceased parents for this, never speaking of them without likewise being highly critical. However, she seems unwilling to allow them to carry the real weight of her perceived unworthiness as, after criticizing her parents, she quickly shifts the conversation to her own defects of character.

At the same time, the popularity of Irby’s previous work makes clear that many readers relate to the less-than-perfect image she presents of herself. Indeed, it’s possible to read Irby’s tendency to put herself down as evoking the weight of unrealistic expectations more than it reveals anything uniquely negative about how she thinks of herself as an individual. In a social context in which women in particular are continually presented with images of perfection—from television, from social media—Irby implies that it’s nearly impossible not to see oneself as lacking. When she describes how she watches TV on her iPad, ready at any moment to pretend to be working if a stranger should happen to look at her, she is pointing both to the pressure in American culture to be constantly productive and the pervasive sense, in a culture defined by social media, of being watched and judged by strangers.

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A second element of Irby’s self-deprecation, implied but not directly addressed in the essays, is chronic depression. Irby even dedicates the book to a commonly prescribed anti-depressant, Wellbutrin. Many of the behaviors she reports in the text are characteristics of individuals with depression: lack of motivation, intense self-criticism, inescapable sadness, feelings of guilt, and extreme frustration with the failures of others. As with many other writers who experienced depression throughout their lives, such as Sylvia Plath, Stephen King, and Virginia Woolf, managing rather than curing depression becomes a primary focus. Continuing to write often serves to offer authors with depression some control over their emotional state.

The Impact of Poverty on Opportunity

Though she hints at it in earlier essays, by the time Irby writes about saving up empty seltzer cans to buy used cassettes of her favorite musicians in “Late-1900s Time Capsule,” it becomes clear that hers was an impoverished youth. The full extent of her destitution plays out over the course of the narrative, as readers discover she lost both parents and any place she could call home in the late 1990s. Living out of her car, she accepted handouts, wrote bad checks, and associated with questionable individuals in her attempt to survive. Her economic hardship did not end as she grew into adulthood. This was in part due to financial mistakes she made. She writes in one case of earning $80 for selling her car but ending up in a location so distant it cost her a $40 cab ride to return home. Barely past her teen years, this bright, capable young woman had no financial training and virtually no bankable skills. As a result, she worked for subsistence wages well into her thirties.

For her readers who might believe otherwise, Irby spells out the reality that she has no secret stash of money. Laboriously, she describes how funds from publishers and book sales get meted out. Describing the publication of Meaty, she writes, “We sold my book for what sounded like the equivalent of a good yearly salary, which was an incredible dream. […] I was overcome with joy. But I didn’t quit my day job” (314). By the time all was said and done, the nice advance had to last a year, because that’s how long it took to write the next book. As Irby grows in notoriety, her financial condition improves, though her financial burdens do as well. When it comes to budgets, she admits, “I’m forty this year. I still don’t know shit” (277).

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This theme pervades the essays as well, building toward the author’s prophetic outcry in “$$$.” Irby points out that there are many people like her: intelligent, capable people who live perpetually below the poverty line. She describes a life of continual financial deprivation as a life also deprived of opportunity. While many people understand this intellectually, Irby understands it viscerally, as an inescapable aspect of her lived experience, and she seeks to make that direct experience accessible to the reader. Further, Irby illustrates the way that the processes and regulations of the business world and financial institutions function as barriers that prevent poor individuals from attaining economic well-being. If Irby herself has emerged from poverty, she insists that this is not the result of working harder or being wiser. Rather, the recognition of her literary gifts opened the door for her to escape the prison of indigence and bear witness to it through her essays.

The Spontaneous Life

From the start to the finish of the book, the author asserts that she lives in the present moment. However, from the outset, she does not describe this as a positive trait. In “Into the Gross,” Irby describes three different circumstances: her fantasy life as a fashionable influencer, her ideal life of dutiful creativity, and her actual life of lethargy. The irony of this contrast comes in the author’s recognition that many adults yearn to live life in the present, pushing aside future concerns and past regrets and focusing exclusively on what each moment of each day may bring. In reality, the author points out, this results in idleness, missed opportunity, and shirked responsibility. In her first essay, Irby portrays the spontaneous life as one that defeats most of the qualities needed for success and progress in today’s society.

Having established the low bar of indolence as a baseline for living in the moment, however, Irby proceeds to build a list of virtues that do emerge from living in the present. To an extent, the reader may recognize the beauty of musical appreciation Irby builds in her list of the best music of the late 1990s (“Late-1900s Time Capsule”). Her in-your-face reflections on questions about intimate relationships (“Love and Marriage”) require the reader to stop and reflect philosophically, asking if she is sincere or ironic in her responses; and what are the implications of what she says if she is sincere—for instance about monogamy being overrated. However, the most spontaneous moments Irby springs on her readers likely come from her proverbial essay (“Lesbian Bed Death”), in which she poses a series of events that, for one reason or another, would interfere with a romantic interlude. In each case, readers are required to enter the imagined event Irby creates and reflect upon their thoughts and feelings. Irby forces her readers to suspend themselves at least briefly in the moment.

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If she commences the essays by implying that living in the moment can be a negative thing, the final essays—particularly “An Extremely Specific Guide to Publishing a Book”—make clear that spontaneity can also lead to happy outcomes. The title of this essay is ironic in that it implies a detailed road map that others can follow to the same result. In fact, “extremely specific” in this case means something like the opposite: This was her experience, and someone else’s will be different. Irby points out that writing the book was not her idea in the first place. Likewise, acquiring an agent was not her idea, and promoting it widely was not her idea. She has worked hard to maximize the opportunities that have come her way, but the overall effect of the essay is to emphasize the role that chance plays in what society terms success.