I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying

A Memoir

De: Youngmi Mayer

Narrado por: Youngmi Mayer

From standup comedian Youngmi Mayer, an unforgettable memoir written with “raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you,” interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, navigating a tumultuous childhood in Korea and Saipan, and coming to terms with her parents’ shortcomings (Michelle Zauner).

“Do you know what happens if you laugh while crying? Hair grows out of your butthole.”

It was a constant truism Youngmi Mayer’s mother would say threateningly after she would make her daughter laugh while crying. Her mother used it to cheer her up in moments when she could tell Youngmi was overtaken with grief. The humorous saying would never fail to lighten the mood, causing both daughter and mother to laugh and cry at the same time. Her mother had learned this trick from her mother, and her mother had learned this from her mother before her: it had also helped an endless string of her family laugh through suffering.

In I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying, Youngmi jokes through the retelling of her childhood as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan, a place next to a place that Americans might know. She jokes through her difficult adolescence where she must parent her own parents: a mother who married her husband because he looked like white Jesus (and the singer of The Bee Gees). And with humor and irreverence and full-throated openness, she jokes even while sharing the story of what her family went through during the last century of colonialism and war in Korea, while reflecting how years later, their wounds affect her in New York City as a single mom, all the while interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality.

Youngmi jokes through these stories in hopes of passing onto the listener what her family passed down to her: The gift of laughing while crying. The gift of a hairy butthole. Because throughout it all, the one thing she learned was one cannot exist without the other. And like a yin and yang, this duality is reflected in this whip-smart, heart-wrenching, and disarmingly funny memoir told by a bright new voice with so much heart and wisdom.

©2024 Youngmi Mayer (P)2024 Little, Brown & Company

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Youngmi Mayer has the incomparable ability to find something funny in the most life shattering material. She writes with a raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you.”—Michelle Zauner, New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H Mart

“Youngmi Mayer’s wit shines as she takes you across a spectrum of emotions, setting you up for heartbreak only to drop-kick you with a laugh. Through an intimate and relatable portrayal of her family’s history, I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying explores all the parts that make us who we are. She’s shown me that there’s a little entitled white guy inside each of us.”—Sohla El-Waylly, New York Times bestselling author of Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook

"You should probably get this book just so I don't have to call you up or show up to your house and read to you from it."—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

fun & profound

unique and heartfelt story full of permission to be herself. i learned a lot about Korean culture

Honest and insightful

A good memoir doesn't just tell a story, it puts it in a larger context. Youngmi does this and makes you laugh while you cry. Her greatest talent.

My favorite book this year

I love how she tells her story in relation to her understanding of the stories of her grandparents, parents, ex husband, and son. She is such a great writer and tells a rich story in few and well written words. I'm about to listen to it a second time because it feels like I'm listening to a friend and it's a comforting feeling

Unexpected and fresh

She writes so well and the stories are tender/funny/heartbreaking. She speaks with honesty, even when it’s not easy. I felt inspired. Highly recommend!!!!

Couldn’t put down

Youngmi Mayer is an incredible author and hilarious. Her beautiful and talented storytelling provides the reader insights into what it’s like as a mixed race Korean white woman in Korea and the US. Wish I could read it for the first time again!

Shook Me

What a breath of fresh air. As a daughter of a Korean mother and a Caucasian American father, I love the revelation of this experience. I felt this story in my heart and cried. There is truly so much value in this story and the author is so funny.

I knew I would love it and I did

This is a hilarious and heartbreaking memoir and I loved it from beginning to end.

I laughed ...

while I cried. I too have a hairy butt hole now. Thank you Youngmi.

I just finished it. I am literally crying.

Girl that story was unique and your perspective is unique and I'm really glad you're not a mermaid. I think that it's so important for you to share your perspective particularly because of the rate at which community is evolving to be less finite and how long the generation trauma has impact while the details of that trauma are forgotten. I loved it. I really enjoyed the legal disclaimer at the end too. That has never been entertaining before and it was. I'm white af but also I'm am also Emo so it's important to me to gain perspective on the intersection your at.. The cat is now trying to comfort me as I sob through this review. It was hilarious. highly recommen.

Genuine, funny, heartbreaking and healing

The title says it all. Mayer describes the undescribable and is herself laughing and crying genuinely throughout.