TELL EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN I LOVE THEM

An Irish-born, New York–based comedian gets serious about her life experiences in early-21st-century America.

Higgins begins her latest essay collection by reflecting on pandemic loneliness and hoping “that it not impart any damn lessons. I can’t stand when horrible and senseless things happen and people insist on finding some neat takeaway to make sense of it all.” This darkly humorous observation sets the tone for the difficult topics she discusses throughout the book, such as her battle with “great waves of anxiety and depression.” The author couches discussions of mental health in a story of getting so high on THC–laced candy that she feared she had lost her mind. As frightening as the misadventure was, it made Higgins realize that in the U.S., she had found the freedom, unavailable to her in Ireland, to treat depression as “just a fact of life.” Being an immigrant granted other perks, as well, like the ability to see the racial subjugation and White supremacy issues underlying the controversy surrounding Confederate statues. She also demonstrates profound empathy for undocumented Mexican immigrants who have experienced the “increasingly draconian treatment” of U.S. border patrol agents. Reflecting on her own easy ability to cross borders and seek American citizenship as a White, middle-class European woman of ambition, she writes, “how free am I when others aren’t free at all?” While Higgins understands how much she has benefited from being in the U.S., she is also critical of the American hypercapitalism that not only led to the rise of Donald Trump, but continues to "deplete everything around me” and push the planet into a devastating climate crisis. The author’s fans may find the humor in this book more subdued than in her past work, but for those willing to venture into the realms of cultural critique, her essays are both timely and rewarding.

Intelligent reading filled with candor and sympathy.