I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying: A Memoir

Comedian Mayer blends wit and wisdom in this charming account of growing up biracial in Korea and Saipan, raising a child alone in New York City, and coming to terms with the damages of generational trauma. She begins with an account of her maternal Korean family, from her great-grandmother’s late-19th-century kidnapping by a bachelor (in a Joseon-era custom called bossam) to a rundown of the gallows humor instilled in her mother and grandfather as the family adapted to life in post-colonial Korea. From there, Mayern moves on to her own difficult childhood, characterized by her white father’s depression and her mother’s resentment. After getting an abortion at 20 and realizing the pregnancy brought her “dangerously close to a life of whatever the fuck this was,” Mayer fled Saipan for San Francisco in the 2000s, where she did sex work and gradually built a life for herself. In sharp-witted prose, she describes starting a family in New York City, leaving her partner, and pursuing her moonshot dream of becoming a stand-up comedian, framing each step as a move away from inherited cycles of hurt. Throughout, she’s unsparing but refreshingly empathetic, especially toward her parents. This heralds the arrival of a promising new voice. Agent: Jessica Mileo, InkWell Management. (Nov.)