Sarah Silverman is sexy. Never voluptuous, always perverse, and beguilingly sweet, the Jewish-American comedienne and now author is Generation Y's pin-up, irresistible to those who like their jokes with the kick of industrial solvent. 'I didn't lose my virginity until I was 26,' she sighed in 2005. 'Nineteen vaginally, but 26 in what my boyfriend calls 'the real way'.'
However, the formality of the publishing process appears to disconcert her. Lacking confidence in her new role, Silverman says she hopes to never have to write another book again. She jokes that she decided to write The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee because 'it just seemed like the right time to get into the publishing industry' (and also because, as one wag suggested, her fellow Saturday Night Live alumna Tina Fey had just sold her anthology of comedic essays for US$6 million).
Silverman was set on calling the book Tales of a Horse-Faced Jew-Monkey, but publisher David Hirshey implored her to go for something less likely to have the company sued for inciting hate crimes. Silverman decided to highlight her unreliable bladder instead.
Onscreen, her comedic timing is masterful. Underscored by that predatory, linoleum-white smile, Silverman's seemingly artless delivery - all 'omigods' and starfished hands - elevates her routinely obscene material. She won an Emmy in 2008 for her spoof song, viral phenomenon I'm F***ing Matt Damon (her then-boyfriend, TV host Jimmy Kimmel, retaliated with the even funnier I'm F***ing Ben Affleck). A few months later, Frank Rich of The New York Times thanked her in print for winning the Jewish vote for Barack Obama in Florida with her incomparable call to arms, 'The Great Schlep'.
But Silverman musters significantly less passion for her memoir. 'I'm a terrible reader,' she says. She can't think of any authors who influenced her prose. (Her favourite activity is watching television in bed.) Mostly, she wrote The Bedwetter - released in May - in hotel lobbies, because they are 'so clean and fancy and warm and there are electrical sockets and food and coffee service'. Her 'cosy but eclectic' Los Angeles apartment was too distracting.
Paid US$2.5 million for The Bedwetter, Silverman claims to know nothing about sales ('I don't understand that stuff at all'), fails to mention its repeat appearances on The New York Times non-fiction best-sellers list, and gives no real indication that she cares about the book at all beyond reflexively stating that she feels 'super-proud' of it.