Growing
up in
Chicago
,
Second
City
was a natural part of life and I began going with some regularity while
in high school and, again, after I was married and moved back to the
city. Occasionally, there
would be someone on stage who stood out and it is where I first saw
Richard Kind and Bonnie Hunt. In
the mid-nineties, there was an actress on the stage who my wife and I
both through was fantastic. After
a few shows, she moved off and soon began appearing on Saturday Night
Live. However, we both have
a strong fondness for Rachel Dratch from those times we saw her at
Second
City
and have always wished that she could have more success than she found
after leaving
Chicago
. Dratch herself addresses this issue in her memoir Girls Walks into a Bar, which is less about her life as a comedian
and actress, and more about trying to find her way in the world when the
universe doesn’t respond in the way she would have hoped.
Although
best known as a comedian, Dratch gets that part of her life out of the
way in the first chapters of the book.
She tells of her life growing up in
Massachusetts
, her decision to attend
Dartmouth
, trying to break into improve in
Chicago
, and her eventual stint on Saturday
Night Live and experiences with 30
Rock. However, none of
that really is the point of the book.
Dratch almost seems to be writing about it because she knows that
those are the questions that other people have, even if they are not of
interest to her.
Instead,
the focus of the book, which is written in an amusing, if dry, manner,
is on Dratch’s attempts to come to terms with her life as she turns
(and has turned) forty. As
she looks around herself and sees what some of her friends have, she
doesn’t come across as yearning for their lives, but instead tries to
understand why she is where she is and has what she has.
Throughout the book, this exploration takes her to a variety of
friends, a few attempts at the dating scene, and several mystics,
although Dratch repeatedly explains that she is not one of those “airy
fairy” types. She instead
comes across as someone who is seeking acceptance of their life.
Much
of the latter part of the book looks at Dratch’s surprise when she
discovered that she is pregnant at age 44.
The father is a man with whom Dratch has been building up a
relationship for the previous six months, but who lived on the other
side of the country, Dratch in
New York
, John in
Sacramento
. Dratch chooses to keep the
child, who would eventually be named Eli, and John decides to move to
New York
to be closer to his son and help raise him.
At
the end of the book, Dratch and John are trying to figure out what their
lives together will be as they raise Eli.
Dratch has hinted at some issues that they are having, but they
are issues that any couple, married or not, would have, and they are
compounded by the fact that both individuals want to understand their
relationship and make it work, and not just for the sake of their son.
The reader comes out of the book hoping that they succeed and can
both find happiness in whatever decisions they eventually make.
And that
Hollywood
and television will once again discover the talent that Dratch has and
put it to good use.
A
reader who is looking for a show business memoir, a celebrity tell-all,
or a collection of witticisms will be disappointed in Dratch’s book.
As already noted, the show business part is relatively brief and
provide background. Dratch
demonstrates an admirable discretion when talking about her colleagues,
from Tina Fey to Lorne Michaels. And
while Dratch includes clever comments and asides, they are organic in
their context and demonstrate who she is and how she thinks rather than
being an overt attempt to get a laugh, all of which makes her memoirs
more poignant.
