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Cack-Handed: A Memoir - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Cack-Handed: A Memoir

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The British comedian of Nigerian heritage and co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous memoir.

According to family superstition, Gina Yashere was born to fulfill the dreams of her grandmother Patience. The powerful first wife of a wealthy businessman, Patience was poisoned by her jealous sister-wives and marked with a spot on her neck. From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark—a sign that she was her grandmother’s chosen heir, and would fulfill Patience’s dreams. Gina would learn to speak perfect English, live unfettered by men or children, work a man’s job, and travel the world with a free spirit.

Is she the reincarnation of her grandmother? Maybe. Gina isn’t ruling anything out. In Cack-Handed, she recalls her intergenerational journey to success foretold by her grandmother and fulfilled thousands of miles from home. This hilarious memoir tells the story of how from growing up as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working class London, running from skinheads, and her overprotective Mom, Gina went on to become the first female engineer with the UK branch of Otis, the largest elevator company in the world, where she went through a baptism of fire from her racist and sexist co-workers. Not believing her life was difficult enough, she later left engineering to become a stand up comic, appearing on numerous television shows and becoming one of the top comedians in the UK, before giving it all up to move to the US, a dream she’d had since she was six years old, watching American kids on television, riding cool bicycles, and solving crimes.

A collection of eccentric, addictive, and uproarious stories that combine family, race, gender, class, and country, Cack-Handed reveals how Gina’s unconventional upbringing became the foundation of her successful career as an international comedian. 

ISBN-13: 9780062961723

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 05-24-2022

Pages: 320

Product Dimensions: 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.72(d)

Gina Yashere has appeared on countless television shows both in the UK and US. In the US she was the first and only British comic to perform on Def Comedy Jam. She has performed on The Tonight Show, has been featured as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and is a co-executive producer, writer, and series regular on the CBS sitcom Bob Hearts Abishola, which she co-created with Chuck Lorre. She has three comedy specials currently streaming and appears in The Standups: Season 2 on Netflix.

Table of Contents

1 Man Is like Pepper-You Only Know Him When You've Ground Him 1

2 Languages Differ, but Coughs Are the Same 15

3 A Snake Can Only Give Birth to Long Things 29

4 When the Laborer Is Praised, His Cutlass Begins to Cut More Keenly 39

5 Going to Church Doesn't Make You a Holy Person Any More Than Going to a Garage Makes You a Mechanic 59

6 If You Are Eating with the Devil, You Must Use a Long Spoon 71

7 It Is Not What You Are Called, but What You Answer To 89

8 If You Sleep with an Itching Anus, You Will Definitely Wake Up with Your Hand Smelling 105

9 Where You Fall, You Should Know that It Is God Who Pushed You 125

10 Procrastination Is the Thief of Time 141

11 The Same Sun That Melts Wax Also Hardens Clay 151

12 Success Is 10 Percent Ability and 90 Percent Sweat 167

13 However Hard a Lizard Does a Push-up, It Will Never Have an Alligator's Chest 179

14 Smooth Seas Do Not Make Skillful Sailors 205

15 It Is When There Is a Stampede that a Person with Big Buttocks Knows that He Carries a Load 211

16 Warm Water Never Forgets that It Was Once Cold 223

17 A Bird That Flies off the Earth and Lands on an Anthill Is Still on the Ground 251

18 Be a Mountain or Lean on One 263

19 A Flea Can Trouble a Lion More Than a Lion Can Trouble a Flea 275

20 If You Are Building a House and a Nail Breaks, Do You Stop Building or Do You Change the Nail? 281

21 Just Because a Man Is Short, It Does Not Make Him a Child 291

Epilogue 301

Acknowledgments 303

Notes 305