Book Review: Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris

Grammar has never been this funny (or this profane).

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Mary Norris spent more than three decades wrangling commas, hyphens, and the occasional authorial ego as a copy editor at The New Yorker. In Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, she blends memoir, grammar geekery, and a delightfully salty sense of humor into one thoroughly entertaining read. It was a 2016 Thurber Prize nominee for American Humor, and yes—it absolutely earned the nod.

The first half of the book is a behind-the-scenes peek at The New Yorker’s legendary editorial process—complete with turf wars over dictionaries, style debates, and the kind of writer-editor dynamics that will feel very familiar to anyone who’s ever worked with words. Norris recounts these stories with wit, warmth, and just enough sass to make you want to pull up a chair in the copy department and stay awhile.

Then the second half of the book takes a turn toward grammar itself—but not in the dry, diagram-your-sentences way. Think grammar with edge. Grammar with personality. Grammar that swears.

Yes, there’s a whole chapter about profanity. And it is glorious.

One of my favorite anecdotes involved an internal contest among staffers to sneak curse words into the magazine. (Spoiler: her mother would’ve approved—apparently, she had quite the mouth on her.) Norris somehow manages to make even comma placement feel a little dangerous, and that’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d write.

What surprised me most, though, was how reasonable she is. For someone who’s spent her life enforcing the rules of the language, she’s remarkably forgiving of their flexibility. Norris offers guidance, not commandments, and she ultimately puts the responsibility back on the writer to make the right call. Which means: no more blaming your editor for that misplaced em dash.

I bought this book thinking it would provide a lot of grammar instruction. It does give some very good nuggets, but I would not qualify this as a grammar how-to book.

But if you’re a grammar enthusiast, a New Yorker devotee, or just someone who enjoys the kind of memoir that comes with red pens and F bombs, Between You & Me is well worth your time. You might even learn a few things—like when to use a hyphen, or how to make a comma sexy. And if you’re lucky, you’ll come away cursing like a copy editor—with perfect punctuation.

I enjoyed this book and can happily recommend it.