Book Review: Chelsea Handler, My Horizontal Life

It's hard to believe that comedian Chelsea Handler is a best selling author, but apparently, according to the blurbs on her dust jackets, that is a fact. I'm not quite sure what that says about both Handler and we, the American literate public, but I don't think it's something to brag about at a cocktail party, and certainly not at the PTA meeting. Handler is currently best-known for her late night talk show with her dwarf sidekick Chewy, as well as a successful career as a stand-up comic.

Just because you can milk a joke from a drunken crowd in a smoky West Coast night club after 1:00 A.M. does not an author make. This book reads like a string of one-liners, all based on the same topic - sex, sex, and more sex - and is, at its best, a quick read - you can finish it in two hours, tops.

The book starts out with a seven-year old Handler, on a dare from her older sister, sneaking into her parents' bedroom to take a photo while they were having sex. It was the first, but certainly not the last, time that she saw a male's penis. In retrospect, perhaps accepting that dare was the basis for Handler's future sex life and her preference for one-night stands, usually after consuming serious amounts of alcohol and Ecstasy. This book, and I use the term loosely, is comprised of a series of vignettes regarding those encounters, brief as they may be. Some of them are quite funny: Dressed as an M&M for a costume party, she comes home the morning after (having spent the night at yet another guy's house) to discover she's lost her house keys. The only way she can get in is through her kitchen window, but her costume prevents her from getting in further than the kitchen sink.

While the book focuses mainly on her sex life, Handler also manages to fit in some really racist zingers regarding black men, dwarfs, black women, overweight women, shy women, Mormons; the list goes on. While I recognized a lot of her material from having seen Handler on late-night talk shows, HBO and her own show, it's still kind of unsettling to see this kind of stuff in actual print; somehow, it's less offensive when spoken out loud and leaving the air...

I'm not a prude. I wasn't looking for a classical piece of literature when I picked up this book. I knew Handler's work and wanted a laugh or two - which is exactly what I got, no more and no less. Her demographic audience is geared towards guys in their twenties and thirties, young unmarried women in their late teens to early forties, and pretty much anyway looking for a bit of raunchiness in her shows and her books. Would I recommend that you run out and buy this book? No - but if it's convenient, borrow it from somebody, or buy it at a garage sale or on Ebay. That way, I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed in yourself and with Chelsea.