I'll Show Myself Out

In I'll Show Myself Out, comedian and writer Jessi Klein turns from the awkwardness of becoming a woman to the strange country of midlife and early motherhood. The essays cover the shock of a newborn, the loss of an old self, the indignities of an aging body, and the grief and grind that no one warns you about.

Klein writes the way she does for television — jokes first, then the sentence underneath that lands harder than expected. A piece on the mythology of the 'natural' mother sits beside one on death, one on Ina Garten, and one on the exhausting business of simply keeping a small person alive.

The collection follows You'll Grow Out of It and is written for anyone in the middle of a life they thought would feel more settled by now.