Title: The Last Black Unicorn
Author: Tiffany Haddish
Length: 288 pages
Year Written: 2017
Why I chose this book: I needed reading material for a recent work trip and this was on the New Releases table at the airport bookstore.
When I started reading comedienne Tiffany Haddish’s new book,
The Last Black Unicorn, I knew generally what to expect. I’d seen her Showtime comedy special,
She Ready, and had also seen her in the movie
Girls Trip and the very prematurely cancelled
The Carmichael Show on TBS. Like The Rock and Leonardo DiCaprio, she’s always struck me as the type that can only play slight variations of the same character. But luckily for her, herself is a great person to play, and more entertaining and naturally charming than a lot of characters that are concocted.
I finished reading The Last Black Unicorn in two days. It was not at all a challenging read – it is obviously written for maximum ease of digestion. Tiffany Haddish has stories to tell, some of which she examines for a moral or educational takeaway, many of which she does not. Mostly, it appears as though her intent is to share the makings of her: surviving the foster care system, moonlighting as a pimp, hosting bar mitzvahs, living in her car while doing comedy, and so on. Some of these stories you’ve heard before, in standup and in interviews. As soon as you open the book, it is obvious she is an open book. The Last Black Unicorn rehashes several stories from She Ready, often with a bit more detail and introspection.
Anyway, the book was hilarious, written completely in her own voice, which I immediately admired. I analyzed all of this quickly. The grammar of the writing was edited per Tiffany’s speaking standards, often at conflict with traditional stylistic standards. As I read, I was like “Wow” – not just at the content, but at the whole concept. Haddish was illiterate until high school, and now she’d written an entire hardback book. At the same time, it wasn’t perfect English – she has a very distinct voice and personality, so editors probably wanted to keep that intact. The result is a book that is more like the transcribed version of a very long, personal, and painfully honest comedy routine than a story meant to be written. Through an upbeat overtone, powerfully dark tidbits poke through: she was beaten and molested in the foster system; her mother berated and abused her constantly; her history of relationships is full of jealousy and dysfunction.
And then I realized the book really was a transcribed version of a Tiffany Haddish comedy routine, in the most literal sense.
When the book ends, there is a page for Tiffany’s acknowledgments. After hers is a section for Tucker Max’s acknowledgments. Tucker Max? I recognized the name from a book a friend let me borrow in college, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I quickly scanned the book again. I checked the cover, the inner flaps, the copyright page, searching for the name Tucker Max. Did I miss something – was he the co-author? In his acknowledgments, he thanked the team at Book in a Box. Then I remembered reading about this before: a company that writes your book for you. He co-founded Book in a Box, and Tiffany Haddish was a client. This damn near blew my mind. I realized at that point that Tiffany didn’t write this book at all. And I guess it made sense. She’s not a writer. She’s famous, she’s busy, she has $25,000 to spend on a team of professional ghostwriters. I checked the company’s website. It only takes 50 hours of phone conversations over the course of 7 months. They create the manuscript and develop your marketing plan. And most importantly, they write your story with your words and in your voice. If anything, I can say Tucker Max and his team did a convincing job of writing like you’d think Tiffany Haddish would write.
Anyway, this seemingly unimportant detail caused me to examine my relationship with literature, what I really liked about books, and why I probably have preferred leisurely fiction reading for as long as I can remember. I love a good story, but I’m more interested in the words a writer strings together to tell it. It doesn’t matter if the story is real or not – I am interested in the author’s style and creativity, their descriptiveness versus their brevity. Reading this book, I felt connected to Tiffany and her words, and admired her courage in being open enough to share those stories. In the end, that admiration is still strong, but I feel a little less impressed by the book altogether. It is still entertaining enough that I'd recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh, or wants a quick, engaging read.
Rating: 8.2/10
