Cover of You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey

Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism. Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey. From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 240 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Municipal bondage: one man's anxiety-producing adventures in the big city Shares humor, essays
  2. How to Be Hap-Hap-Happy Like Me! Shares humor, essays
  3. Lamentations of the Father: Essays Shares essays, humor
  4. Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason Shares humor, essays

“If you want more of the same (humor about race), start with these.”

  1. Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend
  2. Free onlineFree Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases
  3. Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness
  4. How Not to Get Shot

“If it was the essays that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Social Studies
  2. Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye
  3. The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach (And Other Annoying People)
  4. Benchley Lost and Found

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Run Racist Run: Journeys Into the Heart of Racism
  2. If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother
  3. How to Make White People Laugh
  4. Sole Survivor