Book Review: You Didn't Hear This From Me

gossip and shame and big feelings, oh my!

A girl grows up in a religious family. She desperately tries to resist the pull of her desire in a sinful direction, exploring and pulling back, told by the adults around her that she can overcome her wants. Slowly, she grows up, leaves home, and engages with her desires in a more nuanced and compassionate way, eventually building an integrated life that celebrates all parts of herself.

I’ve read this memoir probably ten times. But Kelsey McKinney’s essay collection “You Didn’t Hear This From Me” is the first one where that narrative thread is not about queerness, but about her relationship to gossip. McKinney, who just moved on from hosting the world’s best podcast, Normal Gossip, has written a book that is just as entertaining as her podcast, plus stunning prose, plus deep and wide-ranging research and insight.

While reading the book, I couldn’t help but fantasize about teaching a shiur series: Each week would cover one chapter, and put it in conversation with related pieces from the Chafetz Chayim. The most obvious chapter is my personal favorite, about McKinney’s Evangelical upbringing and shifting relationship to guilt around gossip. But other chapters would make for an equally rich conversation: “Anon Plz” discusses the ethics of gossip unmoored from names of the gossipers (CAUTION: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GOSSIP GIRL SPOILERS); “Leave Britney Alone” is a thoughtful meditation on celebrity gossip and parasocial relationships; and “My Life with Picasso” takes on how a person should talk about and engage with harmdoers. (It also eviscerates Hannah Gadsby’s 2023 “It’s Pablo-matic” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, which I really disliked, so that’s satisfying too.)

book review editorial assistant