Tasmania’s own Hannah Gadsby stopped stand-up comedy in its tracks with her multi-award-winning show, Nanette, which played to sold out houses in Australia, the UK and the US. Its launch on Netflix, and subsequent Emmy and Peabody wins, took Nanette (and Hannah) to the world. Hannah’s difficult second album (which was also her eleventh solo show) was named Douglas after her dog. Douglas was an Emmy-nominated smash hit, moving beyond the trauma at the centre of Nanette and instead letting the world experience the view from Hannah’s brain – one that sees the world differently but with breathtaking clarity.
Hannah has done plenty of other things over the course of more than a decade in comedy, but that will do for now. She is currently in the middle of her Body of Work tour, and has just released her memoir, Ten Steps to Nanette (our Book of the Month!). Today, Hannah Gadsby is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about it. Read on …
Hannah Gadsby
Please tell us about your book, Ten Steps to Nanette.
HG: It’s all there in the subtitle, really: A Memoir Situation.
Why was it important to you to write this story?
HG: Well, I foolishly signed a publishing deal before I really thought about the amount of work that goes into writing a book. So that legal obligation was probably what really compelled me to finish the book. But aside from that external pressure, I wanted to reveal something of the extra depth of a life that one hour on stage could never hope to communicate.
Your show Nanette tells a story that’s deeply personal. How did it feel to see that show go viral and make such an impact?
HG: From the first time that I performed Nanette it was very clear to me that something profound was going on in the room, but I never imagined that my show would reach an audience who hadn’t already heard of me. By the time Nanette had gone ‘viral’ I had been performing the show for over a year and I was so brutally exhausted that it has taken me many years since to even begin to process what this piece of work has become. I am still a bit stunned to be honest, and am relieved to report that this has been a humbling affair and not a monstrous ego steroid.
Did writing this book change your perception of your personal history at all? If so, how?
HG: Carving out my life story for the page felt like both a construction and a deconstruction. There are some really important stories from my life that did not make it onto the page, and so they did not go through that mythologizing process that is known as editing and re-writing and re-editing. So even though they are important memories for me, they have become hazy in my mind in comparison to others that I immortalized. Which is exactly what I warned against in Nanette – you learn from the part of the story you focus on. So, I guess I am still learning?
What was the most rewarding part of the writing process for this book?
HG: Finishing it. I really, really struggled to write this book. I was terrified of writing something that would distort my understanding of myself … but as anybody who has tried to understand themselves will know – it is kind of impossible to understand yourself.
‘Carving out my life story for the page felt like both a construction and a deconstruction.’
Who did you write this book for? Who do you wish would read it?
HG: Broadly speaking there are two groups of people I hope will find a meaningful connection with this book. The first are people who are struggling with the effects of trauma. I did not write it to be a prescriptive ‘how to recover from pain’ recipe book. It is an idiosyncratic examination of the avalanche of backsliding that is complex PTSD. People need to know that it is really, really hard to overcome trauma and those who already know that will appreciate me not gaslighting them. The other group is the neurodivergent community, particularly those who do not match the stereotypes. Which is pretty much all of us.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer and comedian?
HG: I stumbled into comedy, and comedy pushed me into writing. I truly believe that if I could have earned a living wage as a farm labourer, that’s what I would be doing.
What is the last book you read and loved?
HG: Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. I haven’t finished it yet, so it may let me down, but I am having a lovely time with it so far.
What do you hope readers will discover in Ten Steps to Nanette?
HG: I hope they discover something they need.
And finally, what’s up next for you?
HG: I am in the middle of a world tour of my new stand-up show ‘Body of Work’. It’s a very warm and almost happy show. So, I guess we can say that I am safely on the other side of Nanette. For now.
Thanks Hannah!
—Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby (Allen & Unwin) is out now.
Ten Steps to Nanette
Our Book of the Month for April!
Gadsby's unique stand-up special Nanette was a viral success that left audiences captivated by her blistering honesty and her ability to create both tension and laughter in a single moment. But while her worldwide fame might have looked like an overnight sensation, her path from open mic to the global stage was hard-fought and anything but linear.
Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby's growth as a queer person from Tasmania-where homosexuality was illegal until 1997-to her ever-evolving relationship with comedy, to her struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and...
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