Attempting Normal

People make a mess. Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could find—minor-league hoarding, Viagra addiction, accidental racial profiling, cooking for spite, cat fancying, shoplifting from Whole Foods, flying airplanes with his mind—but nothing seemed to work. It was only when he was stripped down to nothing that he found his way back.

Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey through the wilderness of his own mind, a collection of explosively, painfully, addictively funny stories that add up to a moving and hilarious tale of hope and hopelessness, failing, flailing, and finding a way. From standup to television to his outrageously popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Marc has always been a genuine original, a disarmingly honest, intensely smart, brutally open comic who finds wisdom in the strangest places. This is his story of the winding, potholed road from madness and obsession and failure to something like normal, the thrillingly comic journey of a sympathetic f***-up who’s trying really hard to do better without making a bigger mess. Most of us will relate.

Praise for Marc Maron and WTF

“Marc Maron is a startlingly honest, compelling, and hilarious comedian-poet. Truly one of the greatest of all time.”—Louis C.K.

“I’ve known Marc for years and I can tell you first hand that he’s passionate, fearless, honest, self-absorbed, neurotic, and screamingly funny.”—David Cross

“[A] comedy legend.”—Rolling Stone

“Devastatingly funny.”—Los Angeles Times

“For a comedy nerd, this show is nirvana.”—Judd Apatow

Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian and host of the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. He has appeared in his own comedy specials on Comedy Central and HBO, and his sitcom Maron airs on IFC. He lives in Los Angeles.