Quick Take
- Narration: Tom Davis self-narrates with the loose, digressive quality of someone telling stories at a dinner party rather than performing a polished book.
- Themes: The secondary view from behind the SNL curtain, countercultural coming-of-age, the Grateful Dead as unexpected autobiography
- Mood: Wry and nostalgic, with an undercurrent of genuine loss
- Verdict: A memoir about living adjacent to greatness that is more honest about its own limitations than the marketing suggests.
There is a particular kind of comedy memoir that is not really about comedy at all. It uses famous names and professional proximity as scaffolding, but what it is actually doing is trying to understand a life lived at an angle to celebrity, close enough to witness the great events but never quite the one being witnessed. Tom Davis’s 39 Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is that kind of book, and it is considerably more interesting once you stop expecting it to be an SNL oral history.
Davis wrote for Saturday Night Live from the beginning, partnered with Al Franken in the Franken and Davis act, and was present for what the memoir’s subtitle calls the early days of a show that has now become cultural mythology. The names in the synopsis are correct and their presences real: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Lorne Michaels, Chris Farley, Michael O’Donoghue. Davis knew all of them. But reviewer Breanna Klewitz puts it well when she suggests that readers expecting a history of SNL should look elsewhere. This is a memoir about Davis himself, and SNL is one chapter of a life that moves from suburban Minneapolis through the hippie culture of 1960s San Francisco and across several decades of a career that was never quite the center of the story.
The SNL Expectation Problem
The 3.8 rating with 128 reviewers signals a divided audience, and reviewer Eugenia Parrish’s critique is worth sitting with: a man who made his living writing funny things for SNL producing a memoir that is not very funny. That is a real observation, though it is also somewhat unfair to the book’s actual ambitions. Davis is not trying to reproduce the sketch-writing energy of the writers’ room. He is trying to remember, accurately and with some self-awareness, what it felt like to be present for something that became enormous. The title’s acknowledgment of memory loss is not just a joke: it is an honest admission about what memoir can and cannot recover.
Self-narrated, Davis brings a vocal quality that reviewer Tracy describes well: the looseness of someone telling stories rather than delivering polished material. His voice has the inflection of someone accustomed to rooms of people, and there are passages where you can feel him genuinely warming to a memory. The problem is that this quality also contributes to a certain shapelessness. The memoir does not build toward anything in particular; it accumulates.
The Grateful Dead Chapter of the Story
Reviewer Tracy notes that the book is as much about the Grateful Dead as it is about SNL, and that observation is illuminating. Davis’s life in this period was structured by music as much as comedy, and the countercultural milieu of the late 1960s and early 1970s that the synopsis describes as the hippie culture of San Francisco is actually where Davis’s sensibility was formed. The SNL years are, in some ways, the outcome of that formation rather than the central subject. Understanding that reorientation makes the book more coherent than a straight-comedy-memoir expectation allows.
The anecdotes about specific SNL performers are candid when they appear, though they are distributed throughout a much longer narrative arc rather than clustered. Davis writes about his friends with what feels like genuine affection and without the competitive score-settling that marks some comedy memoirs of this era. Chris Farley’s presence in particular carries emotional weight that the book does not oversell.
Nine Hours as a Format Decision
At nine hours and sixteen minutes, the runtime is substantial for a memoir that reviewers consistently describe as an accumulation rather than a narrative drive. The format rewards listeners who are already interested in Davis specifically, or in the specific cultural moment he occupied, more than it rewards those seeking a propulsive read. Reviewer Tracy describes laughing out loud multiple times, which is real, and the memoir has genuine comic moments. But the book does not sustain a comedic register throughout. It is funnier in section than in sum.
Who Should Listen / Who Should Skip
Listen if: You have a specific interest in the early SNL era and want a secondary perspective from someone who was genuinely there, or you appreciate memoirs that prioritize authenticity over narrative polish. Skip if: You are expecting a comprehensive SNL history, sustained comedic writing, or a tightly structured narrative with momentum.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of the memoir is actually about Saturday Night Live versus Davis’s broader life?
SNL features throughout but is not the exclusive focus. The memoir covers Davis’s coming-of-age in Minneapolis, his time in San Francisco’s countercultural scene, his connection to the Grateful Dead, and his career arc, with SNL as one significant thread among several.
Does Tom Davis’s self-narration work for nine-plus hours of material?
Davis reads with the loose, conversational quality of someone telling stories, which suits the memoir’s digressive nature but can feel shapeless over a long runtime. It works better in shorter sessions than as a marathon listen.
Is there significant coverage of specific SNL sketches or the Franken and Davis partnership?
The Franken and Davis partnership is a recurring presence throughout, and there are anecdotes about specific moments from the show. However, the memoir is primarily personal rather than behind-the-scenes reporting on SNL as an institution.
How does this compare to other SNL memoirs and oral histories?
Reviewer Breanna Klewitz specifically recommends other SNL oral history formats for those wanting comprehensive coverage of the show. This memoir offers a more personal, idiosyncratic perspective from one participant’s viewpoint rather than attempting to document the institution.
