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Rabbit can be seen as the story behinds the jokes. Ms. Pat stripping away the punch lines and solely getting to the facts.
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| Author | |
| Patricia Williams, Jeannine Amber | |
| Publisher | Dey St. |
| Book’s Publish Date | 8/22/2017 |
| Genre | Biography |
| Good If You Like | Stories About Someone Pulling Up Their Bootstraps And Making a Way Out Of No Way
Books Focused On Growing Up In Urban Areas |
| This Isn’t For You If | Don’t Like Stories About Black Folk Selling Drugs, The Hood, Or Things Of That Nature |
Images and text in this post may contain affiliate links which, if a purchase is made from those sites, I may earn money or products from the company. Most affiliate links contain an upward facing, superscript, arrow.
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Summary
Patricia Williams, known as Ms. Pat, is a force to be reckoned with. Yes, that is very cliché to say, but take into consideration she came from practically nothing. She was raised in a household filled with verbal abuse, where her mother had to scam her way until keeping some kind of food and housing over her head, and that is just the beginning. There is teenage pregnancy, dealing drugs, getting shot, and so much more that it drives the idea that laughing to keep from crying is probably the most common coping mechanism there is. Yet, by luck, the grace of a higher power, you name it, she found peace. Well, at least stability. As you read the story, you’ll realize, similar to Bernie Mac’s situation, her peace surely was not in the form of a quiet household.
Highlights
It’s Strips The Comedy & Speaks Of The Pain
In most biographies, on top of hearing the speaking voice of the author, you also can feel them trying to make light of a situation. Maybe, on occasion, they’ll touch on something dark and you can feel the tone shift, but it doesn’t stay throughout the book. Rabbit is a bit different. Now, I wouldn’t call this outright depressing, of the ilk of PUSH
My take is that, without literally hearing Ms. Pat, you can’t make light of the situations she was in. Hearing about the relationship she had with Derrick, while it won’t bring you to tears, it will have you saying, “Damn.” Add in all she had to do to raise her kids, the danger she was in, and Michael? What you get is a harrowing tale. The kind which makes the saying, “It gets better” seem real and believable.
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On The Fence
It Doesn’t Go Into Ms. Pat’s Rise In Standup
Ms. Pat’s rise in standup Comicview, Last Comic Standing and more is not part of this book. We learn how she got her stage name, a little bit about working the chitlin’ circuit, and her time talking on podcast, but as for her career? Not so much. This perplexed me a bit for while I get the point was telling her story, it felt like she mostly gave her whole act away. What I mean by that is, taking note I saw her live, if you read the book, pretty much it is all the details of her stand up. Almost making Rabbit feel like a special without any jokes. So without the inclusion of her time on the aforementioned shows, entering those spaces and how off it was, it felt like we were missing a chapter or two.
Yet, considering Ms. Pat is still building towards big things, including a TV movie about her life, maybe it felt too soon to write about in 2017?
Overall: Positive (Buy)
With being a quick read, yet still packing an emotional punch, Rabbit
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