Winstead - Lizz Free or Die: Essays

Praise for Lizz Free or Die

Sharply witty and iconoclastic.

Elle

Searching and lively[and] movingMs. Winstead writes with a feel for the sound of words.

The New York Times

EngagingWinstead proves that shes got a writers touch.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

CharmingWith insight and understated humor.

Mother Jones

An indelible, hilarious, often poignant romp.

American Way

A sometimes-hilarious look at a woman who often plunged into life without much forethought but kept on going.

St. Paul Pioneer Press

Lizz Winstead is a sharp-witted truth-teller, and Lizz Free or Die will inspire anyone who has ever talked back to the television or wished they could come up with satire as insightful as The Daily Show. Its also a book about family, friendship, and a zest for comedy that transcends political differences. In good times and bad, Winstead found her way by going toward the light and the laughter.

Ms. Magazine

Political satirist and stand-up comedian Winstead[is] shrewdly observant, linguistically adept, bravely soul-baring, and caustically smart.

Booklist

Funny, thoughtfulRecommended.

Library Journal

Intelligent and wittyWith honesty and humor.

Publishers Weekly

Lizz Winstead is down to earth and wonderful and niceRead her book. Youll start to think the same thing.

Bust Magazine

With this book, Lizz Winstead takes us on a hilarious, honest, moving, and insightful journey. It is the journey of a funny, fearless woman as she finds her voice and shares it with the world.

Arianna Huffington

Reading Lizz Winsteads hilarious collection of very personal essays somehow leaves you changed. You laugh, and yet there are nutrients in her words.

Sarah Silverman

Lizz Winstead has written a fantastically readable collection. I really did laugh, and then, I really did cry. Most important, though, I found someone I can leave my dogs with, should I have to flee the country.

Julie Klam

Brilliantly funny and razor sharp. Lizz Winstead observes our times with candor, hope, and a gimlet eye. She is a national treasure.

Adriana Trigiani

Reading Winstead is like hanging out with Winstead: invigorating, infuriating, and hilarious.

Patton Oswalt

LIZZ
FREE
OR
DIE

[ESSAYS]

LIZZ WINSTEAD

RIVERHEAD BOOKS New York

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright 2012, 2013 by Shoot the Messenger Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any
printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy
of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Riverhead hardcover edition as follows:

Winstead, Lizz.

Lizz free or die : essays / Lizz Winstead.

p. cm.

1. Winstead, Lizz. 2. ComediansUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

PN2287.W525A3 2012 2012006441

792.7028092dc23

[B]

First Riverhead hardcover edition: May 2012

First Riverhead trade paperback edition: May 2013

Riverhead trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-101-58081-3

Cover design by Alex Merto

Book design by Nicole LaRoche

Photo on page 305 Mindy Tucker

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers
and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the author nor the
publisher is responsible for errors, or for changes that occur after publication.
Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.
In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;
however, the story, the experiences, and the words
are the authors alone.

For Wilbur and Ginny

T his is a book of essays about life. My life.

Its not a memoir, per se, as I decided to write about some specific moments that will give you some insight into the people, places, and experiences that propelled me forward. (With a few steps back in the process.) I think of these pieces as messays, because they are a collection of stories that put my somewhat complicated life into perspectiveor at least a kind of perspective.

I have been through a lot of the same stuff that you have dealt with, are dealing with, or will deal with in the future. From the struggle of being a young girl trying to find her voice, to the unlikely places she found it, to the realities and heartbreak of watching an aging parent die, this book gives you (I hope) permission to be honest with yourself, to laugh, to cry, to bitch, and to scream. And maybe if you come across any of those emotions while reading, you will realize that you, too, at some point in your life had been told to restrain yourself because you needed to be appropriate.

I hate the word appropriate.

And I hate people who think they can define appropriateness as an absolute, especially because they are usually the same people who try to shove toeing the line down my throat most aggressivelyproselytizing politicians and preachers and prosaic comedy producers, all who specialize in prematurely adjudicating without an appropriate leg of their own to stand on.

I hope this book redefines the word appropriate, or shoves it into obsolescence with other meaningless words, like refudiate, jiggy, and TeaParty.

So what kind of juicy details about my life are included? Well, let me be clear up front: First, this is not a book full of dark family secrets.

My father wasnt one of those horrific memoir dads. You know what I mean. He was not the kind of dad who did things to me that led to a social worker, which led to a judge, which led to an attorney asking in a closed hearing, Where on the doll did he touch you?

And my mother wasnt one of those memoir moms, either. She was not some kind of emotional gorgon who scrubbed this poor authors secret garden with Borax and Brillo pads or made her children eat their own feces in the crawl space under the basement stairs because her cult leader or the voices in her head told her to. She was more subtle than that.

At this point it should be noted that because these messays arent chock-full of the aforementioned themes, Lifetime Television wont be clamoring for the TV rights to this book. Although I will share some woman-in-peril anecdotes, my woman-in-peril stories dont involve deadly estrangement, deadly deception, or my mom and me sleeping with our deadly pool boy. So I offer my sincere apologies right here to the careers of Missy Gold, Tracey Gold, and any other members of the Gold family who will not be employed in some made-for-TV movie incarnation of my life.