Author(s): Daniel M Lavery

Literary Studies

Collected wisdom from the internet's best-loved advice columnist.I recently learned from one of my co-workers that my boss gathered everyone together after I was hired and told them that I was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, which isn't true - I'd been very clear that I'm a trans man who uses male pronouns. How should I handle this?My husband keeps leaving his toenail clippings around the house. I've started slipping them into his coffee cup. Is there a better solution?I think I'm in love with my brother's wife. How do I handle this?A collection of the weirdest and wildest questions sent to Slate's agony aunt, internet darling Daniel M. Lavery, whose sympathetic, thoughtful, good-humoured advice is read by millions.Featuring new material as well as fan favourites, this is a must-have for 'Dear Prudence' fans and a dose of good sense, compassion, and understanding in an increasingly fractured world.Praise for Something That May Shock and Discredit You-'At last, we have the work of transgender bathos we didn't know we needed, but very much do ... Lavery's narrative is anything but linear- It skips back in time to mythic Greece, traipses across the landscape of contemporary pop culture and, in one wonderfully fabulist entry that would make Carmen Maria Machado proud, slips outside of time altogether ... One of our smartest, most inventive humour writers, Lavery combines bathos and the devotional into a revelation.'-Jordy Rosenberg, The New York Times' Lavery's playful takes on pop culture as he explores everything from House Hunters to Golden Girls to Lord Byron, Lacan, and Rilke ... Lavery's writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he's always definitive where it counts ... You'll laugh, you'll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.'-Kirkus Reviews, starred review' A memoir comprised of the humorous essays that have become his trademark ... Some are essays and some are scripts or imagined conversations; at first the chapters and interludes are distinct, but at a certain point they start to blend together. All are hilarious, infused with the type of magical thinking Lavery excels at. They weave Lavery's life experiences together with his historical and pop-cultural obsession.'-Claire Landsbaum, Vanity Fair