The Grin Bin: Mindy Kaling’s ‘Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?’

Last Time in The Grin Bin: “Bossypants” by Tina Fey

When someone says “Mindy Kaling,” those who are familiar with her work on The Office feel they have a pretty clear picture of who she is.

Needy, neurotic, sweet, uninhibited; and not to mention hilarious.

When I first found out the comedienne was primed to release a book (coming this November, keep an eye out!), I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Sure, Tina Fey made sense, along with Chelsea Handler and the like — as they were all known to have been writers prior to painting Hollywoodland red — but Mindy Kaling felt like a random outlier. Who is this Mindy Kaling in real life?  I wondered.  What will she write about?

So, naturally, I was intrigued and I jumped at the chance to read the 25-page preview that was released just last week.

What I found were several chapters with titles like “Don’t Peak in High School,” “Guys Need to Do Almost Nothing to Be Great,” and “Someone Explain One-Night Stands to Me,” which, at surface level, sound like headers for great how-to essays on being awesome or growing up or teaching men a lesson.

Really, though, the passages that followed were less about how she got to be where she is, and more like declarative statements of, “Here I am, bitches, and here are my thoughts.  I have a lot of thoughts,” but with that Kaling/Kelly-Kapoor-esque unapologetic-and-sweet cocktail we know and love her for.

She openly admits to being that annoying friend, like when she outlines an exchange she had about the dangers of a one-night stand:

EXCITED SEXUALLY-LIBERATED FRIEND:  So, then it was like 2AM that same night, and he knocked on my apartment door.  I was in my robe and nothing else — 

ME:  No underwear?

ESLF:  No.  I said “nothing else.”

M:  I feel like you were wearing underwear.  That’s how you are in, like, repose?

ESLF:  Yes.  So he knocked at the door —

M:  Wait!  Sorry.  I’m just realizing: Your doorman let him up without ever seeing him before?  Doesn’t that disturb you that your doorman would just let any old person off the street up to your apartment?  I would give my doorman a book of photos of accepted guests that he could reference —

ESLF: I’m doing fine with my doorman.

M: I would’ve established a different procedure.

And her casual, everyday writing style drives the fact that, so far at least, the overall narrative is based on personal revelations she’s experienced with a world of things; and, if anything, it’s just an excuse to wordvomit comical genius into literature:

[From “Guys Need to do Almost Nothing to Be Great”]

1. Buy a well-fitting peacoat from J.Crew.  Or wait until Christmas sales are raging and buy a designer one, like Varvatos or something.  Black looks good on everyone (Obvious Cops) and matches everything (Duh Police), but charcoal grey is good too.  You can always look like a put-together Obama speech-writer with a classy peacoat.

Sure, at first the superfluous “somethings” and “likes” might make the voice sound like it’s coming straight out of Cher from Clueless, but just like Cher, there’s an unassuming wit and self-awareness that catches you off guard, disarms you, and you just can’t deny.  Or something.

So bottom line is: this avid comedy reader, at least, can’t wait til she can get her hands on the whole enchilada; spicy with salsa and self and BFF love cheese and all.  Like, yeah.

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Next time in The Grin Bin:  “Please Fire Me” by Adam Chromy and Jill Morris

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