Wow, No Thank You.: Essays

Samantha IrbyNonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“Into the Gross”-“Are You Familiar With My Work?”

“Hysterical!”-“Detachment Parenting”

“Season 1, Episode 1”-“An Extremely Specific Guide to Publishing a Book”

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Cultural Context: The Xennial Generation

Irby was born in 1980, the last year denoted as belonging to Generation X and the first year assigned to the Millennial Generation. Those born between 1977 and 1983 are increasingly referred to as “Xennials,” a term originated by author Sarah Stankorb in 2014. Like Irby, born in 1980, Stankorb describes herself and others of her “microgeneration” as being caught in the middle historically and culturally between two seemingly very different generations. She writes, “Between the out-all-night dark horse Gen Xers and the-sunny-still-somehow-optimistic Millennial, there we were. We were born at dawn” (Stankorb, Sarah. “Reasonable People Disagree about the Post-Gen X, Pre-Millennial Generation.” 2014. Good). Stankorb’s remarks mirror the essence of Irby’s writing in that Irby describes a plethora of potentially depressing circumstances, events, and individuals, yet does so in retrospect with humor and hope. Irby has survived sketchy parenting, lack of social support, romantic entanglements, total absence of economic opportunity, and at least three debilitating physical conditions. She writes about all these topics from the unique perspective of a child born 20 years before the 21^st century who finally achieves notoriety and a greater degree of stability 20 years after the new century began.

Positioned in the midst of two distinct eras, Irby’s writings offer a panoptic view of a child who adored remixed cassette tapes and is now devoted to multiple decades of music that she listens to on her iPad. Though she possessed little of tangible value, she experienced the cultural richness of late-20^th-century urban America. Irby spent her first 40 years observing American culture and experiencing significant personal pain, and her essays seek to blend cultural analysis with humorous personal reflections.

Authorial Context: Leaving Chicagoland for Kalamazoo

Irby’s early life took place in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs—a region known colloquially as Chicagoland. Originally from adjacent Evanston, Illinois, Irby spent most of her first forty years in Chicago proper. Often, when describing her dating life, living accommodations, and work experiences, she mentions specific locales that Chicago residents will recognize. As difficult as life was for her in Chicago, she does not hesitate to call it her home. Both positive and negative sides of living there come to light when she describes walking with other residents to hear newly-elected President Barack Obama give his victory speech in Grant Park, then realizing she is miles from home and the buses have probably stopped running. Though Chicago was a mixed bag in every way, Irby had become culturally adapted to a place where she felt she fit in as a bisexual Black woman of marginal means with distinct literary gifts and little economic viability beyond knowing how to care for household pets.

After 36 years in Chicago, Irby moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan to live with her new wife, Kirsten, a white, bisexual social worker, and Kirsten’s two children. In many ways, Wow, No Thank You encapsulates Irby’s reflections looking backward at the life she lived in Chicago from the culture-shocked vantage point of a much smaller Mid-West community. Kalamazoo instantly causes Irby to feel like a cultural outcast. It also gives her the distance to reflect objectively on her life in Chicago. Whereas in Chicago she had always had multiple romantic partners, now she lives in a committed relationship. In Chicago, she had a comfortable set of friends, and now she struggles to connect with others in a decidedly foreign place. In her previous life, she struggled financially, trying to write and perform with only a menial job, and now she has the freedom to write daily—noting in the opening essay that she continually abuses that right. As she comes to terms with the cultural shift to Kalamazoo, her budding literary career also gives her the opportunity to experience multiple distinct settings through book tours and work trips to California.