“I think this book is fantastic. I haven’t read a single word of it, but it’s got everything I want in a book – a front, a back, a good spine. And it’s got some heft. Whoever wrote this book knew what she was doing. Well done.”
– Review from Michael Che
Saturday Night Live has been one of my all-time favorite shows since I first tuned in back in December of 2009 (Taylor Lautner was the host that week). Anyone who’s seen the show in recent years has witnessed the incredible chemistry of Colin Jost and Michael Che on Weekend Update. Jost’s memoir puts his signature wit and self-deprecating humor on full display.
A Very Punchable Face is actually a collection of essays from the Jost, which creates a captivating narrative that is not necessarily chronological. The SNL writer paints a vivid picture of his life with riveting chapters such as, “To Russia with Love,” “Oops, I Fell Asleep in a Graveyard,” and “Okay, So Maybe I’ve Shit My Pants a Couple Times.”
He also recounts hilarious memories such as Jimmy Buffet saving his life during a surfing incident, taking a Danish girl back to his hotel on a bicycle, partying with the Chicago Blackhawks, and the time a South American parasite laid eggs in his leg.
A Very Punchable Face is laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly vulnerable, and it left me wanting more. It should be a requirement for all SNL cast members to write a memoir, if only for my sake.
Childhood: A Very Stitchable Face
Like his future fellow cast member Pete Davidson, Colin Jost grew up in the borough of Staten Island. He really makes a hard sell for his hometown:
“I’ve come to resent the negative depictions of Staten Island on TV because they’ve given my hometown a terrible reputation, which it only sort of deserves. Yes, until recently, Staten Island was home to the largest landfill in the entire world. And yes, as a result, miles of the island smelled like rotting garbage. And yes, my main cultural touchstone as a child was the Staten Island Mall. And yes, only a year ago, a mob boss was whacked outside his house for snitching to the cops. And yes, the local St. Patrick’s Day parade is the only parade in New York that still bans gays from marching. Because if you’re wearing green tights or a kilt, you better be straight!”
“But Staten Island also has like 170 parks! That’s so many parks, guys!”
He also has wrecked his face with surprising frequency:
“Now, call me crazy, but when you already have five sets of stitches on your face, and you’re thirty-three years old, you sort of assume you’re done getting stitches on your face. And when your face is on TV, you would assume you’d be extra careful not to damage that face, so people don’t flip to your channel and think it’s Shark Week.”
“Well, both of these assumptions were foolish. As are many decisions I make in my life.”
One more mishap and we may have never gotten ScarJost!
The Harvard Years
“Some people dream about attending Harvard. I did not. I dreamed about attending the University of North Carolina, because that’s where Michael Jordan went.”
Colin Jost attended the Ivy League institution where he majored in the History and Literature of Russia and Britain. He studied there at the same time as several other famous figures, such as politician Pete Buttigieg (who he has portrayed on SNL), NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“I was ‘Facebook friends’ with Mark, back when that actually kind of meant something. But I don’t think we ever hung out, because he was busy making a billion dollars creating Facebook and I was busy making zero dollars writing comedy pieces for a magazine that no one read.”
That magazine was the Harvard Lampoon, whose notable alumni include Conan O’Brien and B.J. Novak (The Office). It was there that the comedy writer began to hone his craft.
“For a lot of us the Lampoon was a place we didn’t know existed, but once we found it, we couldn’t imagine our lives without it. It was our Hogwarts, only somehow nerdier. (At least three of my friends wore capes. And they were human adults, not child wizards.)”
Some serious stuff
Mixed in with all of the humor are several heartfelt stories that really humanize Colin Jost, including “Why I Love My Mom,” one of the most earnest essays of the memoir, which details his mother’s heroic efforts at Ground Zero on 9/11. The comedian is also open about his character flaws and insecurities. Not only does Jost feel like an underdog coming from Staten Island, he also admits that, at times, he still doesn’t feel that he’s accomplished enough.
“But I’ve realized that part of my reason for doing a hundred things at once is a deep fear of doing one thing as well as I possibly could – and failing. I’ve always been reluctant to throw myself fully into one project because if it doesn’t work out or people don’t like it, then I would have to face the reality that my best effort wasn’t good enough.”
It goes to show that even attending one of the world’s top universities, starring in a staple of American television, and marrying an A-list actress does not fully erase imposter syndrome or self-doubt. Which, I suppose, is refreshing and depressing at the same time.
I read plenty of non-fiction, so sometimes it helps to decompress with a book that’s more light-hearted and humorous. The die-hard Saturday Night Live fan will eat this memoir up like I did. And, even though Colin Jost is already a pretty likable guy, A Very Punchable Face might just make you grow even fonder of him.