A Brief History of Oversharing: One Ginger's Anthology of Humiliation

by Shawn Hitchins

Comedian Shawn Hitchins explores his irreverent nature in this debut collection of essays. Hitchins doesn’t shy away from his failures or celebrate his mild successes — he sacrifices them for an audience’s amusement. He roasts his younger self, the effeminate ginger-haired kid with a competitive streak. The ups and downs of being a sperm donor to a lesbian couple. Then the fiery redhead professes his love for actress Shelley Long, declares his hatred of musical theatre, and recounts a summer spent in Provincetown working as a drag queen.

Nothing is sacred. His first major break-up, how his mother plotted the murder of the family cat, his difficult relationship with his father, becoming an unintentional spokesperson for all redheads, and mandy moore many more.

Blunt, awkward, emotional, ribald, this anthology of humiliation culminates in a greater understanding of love, work, and family. Like the final scene in a Murder She Wrote episode, A Brief History of Oversharing promises everyone the A-ha! moment Oprah tells us to experience. Paired with bourbon, Scottish wool, and Humpty Dumpty Party Mix, this journey is best read through a lens of schadenfreude.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Humor, Essays, Memoir, Canada, Comedy

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2017

About the author

Shawn Hitchins is the author of "The Light Streamed Beneath It" (ECW' 21) and "A Brief History of Oversharing" (ECW' 17). His one-man show "Ginger Nation" toured extensively before being filmed in concert (Amazon Prime/OUTtv). Hitchins is an award-winning entertainer, writer, personality, and creator of live performance.

Hitchins was featured on CBC's "The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers," "q," and "Here & Now," and his work garnered notices from the Guardian, GayTimes UK, BuzzFeed, CNN, BBC, BBC World Service, TimeOut NY, eTalk, The Social, and The Toronto Star.

Shawn is a frequent contributor to CBCArts. He is an advocate for affordable mental healthcare and embodiment. Based in Toronto, Ontario, Shawn is in the process of relocating to the Los Angeles area.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars



Shawn Hitchins

Shawn Hitchins is a Toronto-based comedian, author, and actor. Shawn grew up gay in a tiny rural enclave during the 1980s and 90s -between the time of the AIDS epidemic and the expansion of gay rights. Thus Shawn's life has had ups and downs. In this book Shawn shares some stories about himself - ranging from the painful to the hilarious.

To provide a feel for the book, I'll give some examples of Shawn's anecdotes.

*****

Shawn has Fitzpatrick type 1 skin, which means he's pale, has red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. In addition, Shawn always burns, never tans, and is prone to melanoma. Shawn gets himself checked by a dermatologist every six months for cancerous lesions, and is super careful about the sun.

For instance, Shawn writes, "Whenever a friend invites me to an awesome summer barbecue, I immediately ask, 'Will there be shade?' Then I demand the architectural blueprints of their home and a 360 panoramic shot of the backyard as POS (proof of shade). Finally I soak myself in a vat of toxic sunscreen and allow it to seep into my lymph nodes."



Only then will Shawn enter a summer barbecue...dressed like a slutty gay scarecrow.



*****

Shawn grew up in the small agricultural town of Egypt, Ontario, where he was an outlier.



Shawn observes, "[Like] the childhoods of many young gay men from small towns who came into their sexualities in the shadow of the AIDS crisis and before the advent of Ellen and Will and Grace, I became an outsider, no longer part of some greater whole."

Things got especially hard when Shawn left to pursue a career in show business. He notes, "Having lost the intense sense of belonging, the blind sense of comfort I was raised with, I’ve since desperately tried to regain it."

*****

In 1994, eighth grader Shawn dropped out of the Lion's Club Music Competition - which he almost always won - much to the chagrin of his teacher. Shawn was focused on his 'figure skating career', longing to win a solo in the town's Figure Skating Carnival. Thrilled by Olympic skating champions, Shawn wanted to be the type of male who expressed his strengths wearing sequins, pirate shirts, and form-fitting vests.


Canadian figure skating champion Brian Orser

Shawn's classmate Doug was stiff competition and the rivalry is a fun story.


Will Ferrell and Jon Heder in 'Blades of Glory'

*****

Shawn's sister's graduation frock was a black and white, polka dot tea length dress with a sweetheart neckline and an incredible crinoline.



Thirteen-year-old Shawn was captivated by the dress and, unable to resist, put it on one day - along with high heels from his mother's closet and make-up.

Unfortunately Shawn was caught by his dad Ian, who was HORRIFIED. The next day, a very drunk Ian outed Shawn to a family friend, saying over and over, "My son's a fag, my son's a fag, my son's a fag".....while Shawn held in his tears.

This was a turning point in the relationship between Shawn and his dad.


*****

Shawn checks his success by seeing how fast people respond to his texts, emails, or phone calls. He writes, "I know that if I email one particular person, let's call her Mrs. X, for a simple catch-up and I have a really large project in the works, I immediately get an invite for dinner. BUT if I just did a public face-plant and email Mrs. X asking for coffee, then six months later I get an invite to her son's $45 clarinet recital. These success verifiers are an instant and accurate gauge."



*****

Shawn was a part of a seasonal drag act called the B-Girlz, a trio that performed at the infamous Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown, Massachusetts.


Post Office Café and Cabaret

The group - three zany characters loosely modeled after The Golden Girls archetypes - did medleys of pop music, sketch and improv.



Shawn learned how to be a drag performer while he lived in a moldy, dilapidated room in Provincetown. The comic constantly feared that the brown-stained clawfoot tub could come through the ceiling above his head and kill him in his sleep, but the room was free, so he didn't care.



*****

In 2013, Shawn hosted a ginger pride walk at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, to protest gingerism (prejudice against redheads).



Scotland's Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest art festival, with tens of thousands of performers, including 'jugglers, actors, singers, comedians, stilt walkers, buskers, university glee clubs, and Australians.'


Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Shawn writes, "Edinburgh can make your career, and the laureates associated with being a Fringe hit are what drive relatively unknown talents to empty their coffers to wrap their faces on city bus ads with nonsense star ratings and poll quotes from university student bloggers."


Advertising poster for Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Shawn's first appearance at the Fringe in 2011 was a flop, and he was determined to rectify the situation. Ergo the ginger parade, which started as a joke, and unexpectedly landed!






*****

Shawn's lesbian friends Rita and Theresa asked him to be the sperm donor for their baby, and Shawn vividly describes the process of making the baby.....and the aftermath. This includes collecting semen (multiple times), navigating problems, signing papers, sharing the news, and embracing the idea that a gay man could have a child.



*****

Shawn chooses actors to play the characters in a movie about his life. Some of these are:

Shawn Hitchens - Tilda Swinton



Shawn's father - Tom Selleck



Shawn's mother - Shelley Long



Theresa (the woman inseminated with Shawn's sperm) - Jennifer Garner



Shawn's boyfriend - Ryan Gosling



****

Shawn has many more stories in the book, and the comedian writes about his mother's thriftiness (she didn't like to spend money); his mother's struggle with MS (Shawn took her to Albany for an operation); Shawn's adult advice to his adolescent self; Shawn's adoration of Liza Minelli - a patron saint of lost homosexuals; Shawn hosting a 'Grease' movie event that went badly wrong; the difficulty of getting roles if you're an effeminate male with pink skin, orange hair, slight jaw, and high pitched voice; Shawn being an assistant to writer/director George Bloomfield - who treated him almost like a son; Shawn's hatred of sharing (no halvsies on dessert); Shawn's dismay at repeatedly being mistaken for a female (this is hilarious); Shawn's sneaky shenanigans with the cat Stevie, who Shawn shared with his boyfriend; Shawn and his partner having a conscious uncoupling like Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin; and more.

To end the book, Shawn writes, "To the friends, acquaintances, drag queens, relatives, and nemeses, or any combination of those five whose narratives have entangled with mine, thank you. "

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author, and highly recommended it to readers who enjoy celebrity memoirs.

Thanks to Netgalley, Shawn Hitchins, and ECW Press for a copy of the book.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare that a book will literally make me stop and laugh out loud, but that happened several times while reading Hitchins' stories. There's a lot of pain here, and growth, and a willingness to look at life and laugh at it, oneself, and he universe at large. While I don't know what it's like to grow up flamboyant in a expressed Ontario agricultural community, or lead a joke/publicity stunt "Ginger Rights" protest march, or grapple with the ins and outs of being a donor for a lesbian couple, I feel like Hitchins' engaging voice, willingness to talk about his life warts and all (literally - his discussion of his skin cancer checks with his dermatologist was the first section to have me laughing), and ability to come to peace with the absurdity of existence made me understand him and his life a little better. We're all human, but Shawn is just a little bit funnier (and paler) than the rest of us. Recommended.

**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

He's young enough to be my *younger* son. How annoying is that.

But reading the zig-zag path he's trodden through a challenging life, well, so did I and your stories made me laugh as well as think about mine in a less-than-enraged way, so you're all right by me kid.

I read this on a nasty-hot summer day, my Young Gentleman Caller belching the rice-and-meatballs dinner I made in lieu of some miserable sweat-soaked hours-long ritual of barbecuing beef. Watermelon there was, some traditions are not to be messed with; corn on the cob was as absent as a cat, some traditions are made to be broken. Many snorts of laughter followed by demands of "what? what? why're you cackling?"

We snorted and laughed and ate, underwear-clad and fully air-conditioned, and had a lovely day. All three of us, Shawn was there just as big as life, and welcomed into our logical family.

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute, funny audiobook read by the author. A group of essays that outline his humiliation through life. I found it easy to listen to and snarky at times. Advance electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Shawn Hutchins, and the publisher.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed and I cried (more than I expected), hopefully in all the right places. Shawn Hitchens and I are, on paper, two very different people but I found more than once I was nodding along with him. (I felt a real connection in the FK/LW section). Some of these essay topics were hard topics but his approach to them and to life made it a good read. I do my non-fiction reading as part of my commute so I'm sure my fellow transit riders wondered why the crazy lady was transitioning from tears to chuckles to outright laughing.

[Trio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spend basically zero time paying attention to modern popular culture, and knew nothing about Shawn Hitchins when I grabbed this audiobook from NetGalley. I do adore autobiographies and I love to laugh, and I figured (based on the cover alone) that A Brief History of Oversharing had definite possibilities.

Well, Mr. Hitchins did not disappoint.

Leading us through moments of his life: growing up and family; forays into acting, standup comedy, and activism; love both lost and found, this plucky young man digs deep to find the chutzpah to carry on. Alternating between moments of the bittersweet (but whose life is angst free?) and laugh out loud funny anecdotes, I found A Brief History of Oversharing to be wonderfully entertaining.

The audio is performed by the author, with all the pizazz I could have hoped for.

Thank you to ECW Press Audio, via NetGalley, for the copy of A Brief History of Oversharing. All opinions are my own.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this memoir. Hitchins had me laughing, smiling and crying on and off throughout.
I liked seeing snippets of his life as he shares stories and experiences.

I had never heard of Shawn Hitchins but after reading this I googled him. I do love his Redhead march!

He has certainly had an eventful life, what with starting a movement, fathering a baby for a lesbian couple, running a career and rescuing/stealing a cat.

Although some of the topics Hitchins deals with are not easy to face, he always does so with a quirky sense of humour and a fat dollop of self awareness.

Yeah - i enjoyed this book more than i expected considering he was unknown to me.

[Darcysmom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.
I had very high hopes for this book. There were several moments that made me laugh really hard, but not as many as I expected.
I think the book was at its best when Shawn Hitchins was relating more serious stories. His humor shone through but was tempered by the vagaries of real life.
I enjoyed Shawn Hitchin's writing style and recommend this book as a pleasant way to while away a day.

[Leslie O'Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of Shawn Hitchin's but liked the title cover and of course if it made Rick Mercer laugh it would be sure to make me laugh. And this compilation of essays of Shawn Hitchin's life did not disappoint. The stories are well written and full of charm, sentiment and frequently a good laught.

[✿✿✿May · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met this author at the book launch and he was hilarious. This audiobook narrated by the author was very fun to listen to. In my head, I wish there were pictures of him as a drag queen, and a picture of his daughter, who he fathered with a lesbian couple. His parents remind me of the parents of David Sedaris, the Canadian version.

[Ankur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Omg these memoirs. Devoured this one in two days, it was that good.

I loved reading about the life of this "Ginger" from small-town Ontario who ended up moving to Toronto. Admittedly, I didn't even know there was an Egypt, Ontario until reading this book. I laughed a lot, though about halfway through I was thinking that there were so many stories we weren't getting, that the book seemed to be skipping what I thought would be crucial stories to understanding the author's life. Whether that was the point of this or not, not sure, but it was what I wanted and I felt underwhelmed.

But then I got to the last few chapters, and I found myself misty eyed and overwhelmed with emotion.

HIGHLY recommend this booK!

[Ellen McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
A complete laugh out, heart felt memoir that brings everything into focus. So honest I can cackled in the silent break room, Hitchins is actually what I needed right now. His journey is oddly fimilair and yet so drastically different. Come for the laughs, stay for the heart.

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oversharing? Try underwhelming. This allegedly funny Canadian slogs through dull blabbering and boring complaining with only one really great story worth reading in the book (about his hosting a Grease singalong). Otherwise there's little that's interesting or humorous about this whiny gay guy trying to proclaim his self-empowerment while unhappy with just about everything and everyone.

This is a whole bunch of nothing, and not in the hilarious Seinfeld way. Who cares about Hitchins having to pull hairs growing in odd spots? Or that the drag queens he performed with would steal other people's frozen dinners from their shared fridge? This is what Hitchins thinks is good material. Then there is the sitcom-like confluence of hard-to-believe circumstances that make the book sound like fiction. He obviously exaggerates to try to enhance humor, but when he does the reader loses trust in whether any of it can be believed.

The sure signs of a memoir writer with not enough material are the inclusion of at least one of two things: a dull childbirth story or a chapter on animals. This book sadly has both, a sure indication that much of this is space-filler. Hitchins never really provides any substance, does everything he can to make his parents look horrible, does his catty put-downs of truly successful entertainers, and by the end I couldn't figure out why anyone would consider him talented. He's just an insecure bitchy gay man mistaken as a woman and happens to be a ginger, giving him a gimmick on which to base his non-stop negativity. He should feel humiliated.

[Ilana Waldston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a little dubious about this book but it won me over very quickly. It was poignant, well-written and often hilarious. Shawn Hitchins is a fine storyteller and sure knows how to turn a phrase. I hope he lives a good long time so that there will be a sequel!

[Richard Birch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please tell me you are writing the screenplay adaptation for your book!

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure what this book is trying to be. As a memoir, it is interesting and has its deep moments. As a comedic endeavor (it is categorized as such), it falls so flat. I didn’t laugh once. And I listened to it on audio, read by author. So if it was going to deliver a laugh, one would think this would work via audio. But I like how this guy forms a story. I appreciate the candor. I think he and I could get into some fun trouble together. But the book just didn’t speak to me in any particular way. Even though I wanted it to.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of humor and heart. Shawn Hitchins tells a good story- not just a good story, a very funny story- and more than that, it is packed full of heart, warmth and passion for life. It was over too fast for me. I wanted so much more. I hope there will be many more adventures, told by Hitchins, in the future. So genuine. I'm a new fan.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Cynthia Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will admit I had no idea who Shawn was when I got this book but it was on a list of good memoirs by Canadian comedians so I picked it up. Refreshingly almost devoid of the name-dropping that figures prominently in memoirs by famous people, and certainly an entertaining and touching read. I’d give it a 3.5.

[David Oxley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both charming and heart-wrenching, Hitchins’ words are addictive in every essay of this book. I’m proud he’s a local Torontonian, jealous of his talent and hopeful that the world will see what I see and throw piles of money at him to make more things.

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was more memoir than comedy. His description of his relationship, or lack therof, with his father was painful to read, especially the ice fishing incident. The essays I enjoyed most were the ones on becoming a sperm donor for a lesbian couple, and taking his Mom and aunt on a road trip.

[Lindasp · Rating 1 out of 5]

I selected the audiobook version of this book as I enjoy comedians reading their own work. And while I like to celebrate Canadian actors/comedians, this was a slog to finish! Not ‘brief’ but definitely ‘oversharing’. Sorry, Shawn!

[PaulD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious, but also beautiful, insightful, heartfelt and poignant. I loved this book.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really funny memoir, in which the author shows no hesitancy in completely roasting his own ginger self. Definitely very funny!

[Paul Bocchini · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished it. Most of it made me laugh. Some of it hit to close to home and reminded me of things that I did not need to be reminded of. But I did have to deduct a point for his frivolous treatment of professional work done by Olivia Newton-John. Anyone who knows me knows that ONJ is one of my favourite dames and will not accept any trash talk against her. But I get it, he is going after laughs from people who don’t feel that ONJ was robbed of an Ocarina nomination for Xanadu.

[fery ;l · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read 20 pages before I got extremely bored and had to put the book down for good. I did skim through the other chapters hoping to find something interesting but I did not succeed. I have to admit that this type of book is just not my cup of tea but despite that I found the humor perfect. I am sure i would have found it extremely funny if I had given it the chance

[Andy]

Honest and interesting. At times very funny and others very sad.