Quick Take
- Narration: Martin Short reading his own memoir brings something no hired narrator could replicate, the voice of Ed Grimley and Nathan Thurm explaining where they came from, delivered with the warmth of someone who survived enough to find it all funny.
- Themes: Showbusiness community, grief and resilience, the construction of comic persona
- Mood: Warm, star-populated, and more emotionally honest than the cover suggests
- Verdict: A showbusiness memoir that earns its emotional weight because Short spent decades being genuinely funny before he asked you to care about the losses.
I’ll be honest: I came to I Must Say primarily for the comedy history. Second City in the early days, Saturday Night Live in what feels retrospectively like its golden period, Three Amigos, Father of the Bride, the creation of characters like Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick, this is a career that reads like a guided tour of a particular era in American and Canadian comedy. What I didn’t fully anticipate was the memoir’s other dimension: the losses that Martin Short has absorbed over his years and the philosophy of resilience he’s built around them.
The Washington Post’s quoted praise is accurate: this is the tale of a genuine human being who’s thrived on planet Hollywood. That phrase carries real meaning. Many people survive the entertainment industry. Fewer seem to sustain genuine warmth, maintain real friendships, and keep their private lives intact. Short belongs to the rarer category, and the memoir is partly an account of how.
Second City and the Education of a Comedian
The Toronto years are the sections of I Must Say that will most interest listeners who come for the comedy history. Short arrived at Second City during a period when that institution was producing an extraordinary density of talent, and his account of working with Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hara in those early years is both an insider’s record and a love letter. He is generous with his colleagues in a way that doesn’t read as professional politeness but as genuine admiration. Gilda Radner’s presence in particular casts a shadow over these chapters that Short handles with care, not overdramatizing the loss but not minimizing it either.
The Characters Behind the Characters
One of the most rewarding sections of the audiobook is Short’s account of how his most famous creations, Ed Grimley, Nathan Thurm, Jiminy Glick, actually developed. These are not just performing anecdotes. They’re micro-studies in comedic invention: where the obsessions come from, what audience response teaches a performer about which elements to amplify, how a sketch character becomes a fully realized persona over years of refinement. Short has the analytical intelligence to explain this process, and the experience to know which details actually matter versus which ones just make for good dinner-party stories.
The Private Losses and the Upbeat Philosophy
Short lost his eldest brother and both parents before he turned twenty. More recently, and the memoir covers this with evident difficulty, he lost his wife Nancy of thirty years to ovarian cancer. One reviewer notes that the book is more interesting from a human standpoint than from an entertainment perspective, and I think that understates how integrated these two dimensions are. Short’s philosophy is that maintaining the performance of joy is not denial but a form of discipline, that carrying grief while continuing to show up, be funny, and be present for other people is a choice he made consciously and not without cost. Whether you find this inspiring or insufficiently raw will depend on what you want from a memoir. I found it genuinely earned.
Who Should Listen / Who Should Skip
I Must Say rewards listeners who have broad familiarity with North American comedy from the 1970s through the 2000s. The boldfaced names accumulate quickly, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Mel Brooks, Nora Ephron, David Letterman, and your enjoyment will be proportional to how much context you bring. For listeners outside that frame of reference, Short’s warmth is sufficient to carry the personal sections, but the comedy history chapters may feel like a parade of names rather than a narrative. For everyone else, this is a deeply enjoyable eight and a half hours narrated by someone who has been in the room for so much of what made his era remarkable.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of this memoir covers the SNL years versus the earlier Toronto Second City work?
Both periods are covered in meaningful depth, but the Toronto and Second City years arguably get the most affectionate treatment. SNL receives substantial attention, including specific stories about the cast and writers. The memoir is roughly chronological, so both phases are developed rather than summarized.
Does Short discuss the deaths of family members and his wife in detail? Is this a difficult listen?
He addresses his family losses and his wife Nancy’s death with honesty but not in a way designed to be emotionally overwhelming. Short’s approach is resilience-focused rather than grief-cataloguing. The sections are moving but not harrowing, and they’re balanced by comedy and warmth throughout.
Is Martin Short narrating his own audiobook, and does that matter for the listening experience?
Yes, Short narrates it himself, and yes, it matters enormously. Part of the book’s appeal is hearing the voice behind Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick explaining where those characters came from. The self-narration also brings credibility to the emotional sections in a way that no performance by a hired narrator could replicate.
Does the book address his friendship with Steve Martin, given how prominent that relationship has become in later years?
Steve Martin is present throughout the memoir, and their friendship is discussed in the context of Short’s broader community of comedy colleagues. The book was written before their prominent later-career partnership in films and television, so readers looking for extensive coverage of that specific collaboration should be aware of the timeline.
