Based on a True Story by Norm Macdonald

Written by the late comedian Norm Macdonald, Based on a True Story is partially fictionalized memoir published by Random House in the year 2016. It is 237 pages long and features a forward by Louis C.K. Macdonald, of “Saturday Night Live” and “Dirty Work” fame, was born 1959 in Quebec, Canada, and died 2021 in Los Angeles. His book chronicles the entirety of his life (or the portions he can remember of it) from birth. One part memoir, one part comedy, one part tragedy, and one part meta-commentary, Based on a True Story serves as a blueprint for how to tell the story of one’s life.

The novel intertwines two main narratives: stories from Macdonald’s life broken into segments of years, and a present-day (circa 2016) satirical account of the author’s mid-life crisis. Norm’s stories are ultimately hilarious, as would be expected from a lifelong stand-up comic, and delve deep into untold aspects of his relationships with those such as Sam Kinnison, Adam Sandler, and David Letterman. When speaking of starting out with Kinnison, Macdonald remarked, “we all dressed in suit jackets and shoes like our dads wore, but Sam’s jacket was a long duster, and he always wore a bandana too.” His anecdotes, not only intensely amusing, frequently provide little-known information about his former cohorts. The tale’s second narrative seeks to critique the choices and lifestyles of celebrities such as even choosing to write a memoir. An overblown and over-dramatic account of Macdonald gambling his life away in response to turning 50, it exposes the absurdity of the dilemmas of famous people. Norm satirizes his own story by introducing the convention of an imaginary ghost writer. This is to fire a shot toward celebrities who have to pay other writers to summarize their own lives.

Norm Macdonald’s only publication is a literary work that is surprising at almost every chapter. A memoir that pushes the boundaries of the genre, Based on a True Story is solidly entertaining for both fans of the great comedian and those who have never heard of him alike.