The sexiest of the palsies

I will confess that I’d never heard of Zach Anner — despite his rather impressive web presence — until y’all started posting reviews about his memoir. But I enjoyed reading his book, so if you’ve never heard of him either, you still might want to give this one a shot, especially if you like funny books written by funny guys with really good hair (see his author photo below).

Zach was born two months early, with cerebral palsy — which confines him to a wheelchair. A botched eye surgery has rendered him with poor vision that prevents him from reading well, or, in one of my favorite stories, playing team sports that involve a ball. Still, he has never given up on his dream: being funny for money.

Zach talks about his rise to fame: becoming a 4chan favorite (which sounds kind of scary) and landing a show on Oprah’s network, OWN. He also talks about what happened after the show got cancelled, and all of the other projects he’s been involved in at some point.

While I enjoyed the stories of his traveling and meeting tons of new people, I really liked the parts talking about his childhood, family and friends the most. He’s got an easy way of writing and seems to like poking fun at himself. His childhood gym exploits, in particular, cracked me up.