Pure Innocent Fun: Essays

Keep It! host Madison pairs personal reflection with cultural critique in his irreverent debut. As a Black, gay kid growing up in 1990s and early 2000s Wisconsin, Madison clung to TV, music, and movies as guides to help him understand how to live. In “Being Steve Urkel,” Madison explains his theory that “the sitcoms you watched in your formative years tended to mirror the family unit you wish you had.” In “Oprah Ruined My Life,” he divulges how the talk show host’s emphasis on weight loss exacerbated his own struggles with body image. Throughout, Madison hits familiar beats of millennial nostalgia—he finds common ground with his straight peers through The O.C., while Jerry Springer offers a surprisingly robust queer education—but freshens them up with sharp analysis, highlighting, for example, the catharsis Jerry offered in contrast to his buttoned-up Black family. Not everything works, however. Madison’s somewhat excessive reverence for his idols (he writes of hating Coldplay because Chuck Klosterman does, then coming to love them in secret, only to gain permission after Beyoncé collaborates with them, “because baby, if Beyoncé loves Coldplay, then I love Coldplay”) lend the proceedings a slightly glib undertone. Still, there’s enough cheeky humor and genuine passion on offer here to satisfy pop culture junkies. Agent: Erin Malone, WME. (Feb.)