Merrill Markoe Books In Order

It’s My F—ing Birthday

In the coming year, she said, hoisting her blindingly clean and gleaming glass into the air, may half of all your dreams come true. Mom, I said to her, isn t that kind of pathetic? Well, it’s realistic. It s her thirty sixth birthday, and she really thought things would be different this year that she d have figured out men and how to get along with her narcissistic parents enough to survive a birthday celebration. But nothing s changed. Her disappointing day is capped off by the delivery of a huge bouquet of flowers from Carl, with whom she has recently, and bitterly, split. A gesture of reconciliation? Of passive aggression? She s too unhinged to tell. It s My F ing Birthday unfolds in seven state of my life addresses this hapless high school art teacher writes to herself on consecutive birthdays, as she is determined to break the patterns of behavior that are keeping her down. Her objective: to avoid making the same mistakes over and over and start making some new ones. Through seven outrageously funny years of needling parents, self absorbed boyfriends, riots, O.J., and Monica and bigger and bigger bouquets from Carl she navigates a circuitous and ultimately successful route to happiness in a world where everything seems to conspire to the contrary. What I Learned This Year That I Need to Remember1. No more taking the bait from Mom. Even if the fight becomes about not taking the bait. 2. No more dwelling in the past. 3. Try much harder to continue being a vegetarian. This will limit the restaurants the folks can take me to. 4. No more trying to decode the flowers from Carl. If he sends them again, just think of them as a fun, free thing, like a little sample box of cereal or detergent that suddenly appears in the mailbox. 5. Don t make a big deal out of the fact that there were no guys this year. Perhaps that s a better thing than continuing to get involved with guys who exhibit behavior from the beginning that indicates the whole thing is completely hopeless. So try to remember the above as a coping strategy when I am so crazed with horniness that I want to throw myself off a building. 6. No more mumbo jumbo. This means no more calling 900 astrology numbers listed at the end of horoscopes in women s magazines to find out my love forecast. And no more going to psychics, no matter how dicey things get.

The Psycho Ex Game

Lisa Roberty is a successful screenwriter with an impoverished social life who’s enduring a demoralizing job at the mind numbing sitcom You Go, Girl. Grant Repka is an obscure indie rock musician who, in his forties, finds his career surprisingly resurrected with the success of his comic operetta about the doomed romance of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. When Grant and Lisa meet after one of his shows, sparks don t immediately fly but e mail addresses are exchanged. A my book for your CD trade and a couple of e mails later, Lisa tells Grant that she enjoys his song My Psycho Ex, but warns him that where psycho exes are concerned, she s pretty sure she could drink him under the table.

Little does she know that this will become the opening salvo in an epic e mail battle dubbed The Psycho Ex Game, a storytelling competition in which horrific tales of dysfunctional love and living with lunatics are volleyed with glee. The rules are simple; the point system, unique: the experiences that would normally leave someone running for the therapist s office humiliation, degradation, and complicity in psychotic behavior just might win match point in The Psycho Ex Game. Now it s Grant vs. Lisa as the wretched tales of his ex, the Junkie Queen of Darkness, vie with the woe inflicted by her ex, a tantrum throwing actor/director widely known as Mr. Summer Box Office Record Holder.

As the correspondence evolves, it surprises Lisa by offering her the kind of intimacy she has never shared with a man in the same room. Before long, what started as a friendly competition becomes a road map to an unlikely couple s growing involvement, leaving both Grant and Lisa secretly wondering, If we were to get involved, which one of us is potentially the next Psycho Ex?

Written in alternating he said/she said chapters, The Psycho Ex Game is shot through with the acerbic humor of Merrill Markoe and the mordant observations that have made Andy Prieboy a literate voice in rock. The Psycho Ex Game is a hilarious dissection of injuries sustained on the front lines of romance and the careful nursing that gets us battleready once again.

From the Hardcover edition.

Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

Dawn Tarnauer’s life isn t exactly a success story. Already twice divorced, the young Californian is too busy job hopping to start a career, her current boyfriend insists on living off the grid, her Life Coach sister perpetually interferes with incomprehensible affirmations, her eccentric mother is busy promoting the culmination of her life s work: The Every Holiday Tree, and her father is ending his brief third marriage while scheduling two dates for the same night. Dawn s only source of security and comfort, it seems, is Chuck, a pit bull mix from the pound. So, when her boyfriend announces that he s leaving her for another woman, a despairing Dawn turns to Chuck for solace. I should have said something sooner, Chuck confides, as he tries to console her. Couldn t you smell her on his pants? Dawn is stunned. It s one thing to talk to your pets, but what do you do when they start talking back? It s not just Chuck, either; she can hear all dogs and man s best friend has a lot to say. The ever enthusiastic Chuck offers his tried and true advice on the merits of knocking over garbage and strewing it everywhere, auxiliary competitive peeing etiquette, and the curative powers of tossing a ball. Doubtful of her own sanity, Dawn considers that, in the ways of life and love, it might be better to trust Chuck s doggie instincts instead of her own. Filled with sharp wit, biting humor, and canine conversation that would make Doctor Dolittle s jaw drop, Merrill Markoe s engaging, cleverly written novel is about the confusing search for love and the divine acts of dog. From the Hardcover edition.

Nose Down, Eyes Up

At forty seven, Gil has reached a relatively happy period in his life as the world’s oldest twenty two year old man. In exchange for doing the odd carpentry and construction job, he gets paid to live rent free in Los Angeles at the glorious summerhouse of rich retirees who are never there. It s a world of solitary splendor spent mainly in the company of his four dogs, Cheney, Fruity, Dinky, and Jimmy, the alpha and the only one of the four that Gil has raised from a pup.

Because Gil is the kind of guy who understands his dogs far better than he understands any of the people in his life including his girlfriend, Sara, who is an animal communicator albeit one that the dogs make fun of he is not particularly surprised when he stumbles upon Jimmy delivering lectures on canine manipulative techniques to the rest of the dogs in the neighborhood. For example, the always effective Nose Down, Eyes Up is a surefire path to permission to sleep on the bed. Soon Gil begins to see dollar signs in the idea of turning Jimmy and his advice into a brand that he can merchandise on the Internet.

Their collaboration has barely begun when Jimmy makes a shocking realization: He s adopted. And not only is Gil not his real father, they re not even the same species. In the identity crisis that ensues, Gil hears the last thing he wants his favorite dog to say: that Jimmy wants to be reunited with his birth mother, a bit*ch owned by the woman who emptied Gil s bank account, his pension plan, and his plans for the future Gil s sexy and still seductive ex wife, Eden, now remarried, wealthy, and living in Malibu.

When the rich retirees who own Gil s house return for an indefinite period, Gil must decide what to do: risk a new relationship disaster by trying to live in a tiny house with his good hearted on again, off again girlfriend, Sara, or relive an old relationship disaster by getting reinvolved with his flirtatious ex wife, with her new husband, Jimmy s birth mother, and their Malibu guesthouse.

In this hilarious new novel, Merrill Markoe offers uncanny insight into the bonds between hounds and humans, as well as their respective ideas of the way that love and family are supposed to work. Nose Down, Eyes Up is a revealing examination of the interspecies power of love, sex, family, and real estate and why everyone on two legs or four deserves to have his or her day.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Day My Dogs Became Guys

Carey has three ordinary, lovable dogs. Until one day, during a solar eclipse, he finds three pretty strange people who ‘used’ to be his pets. How is Carey going to control his ‘people?’ And what will happen when his mother gets home? Full color.

What the Dogs Have Taught Me

Award winning comedy writer Merrill Markoe, the slightly warped mind behind Stupid Pet Tricks, is an old hand with dogs. She knows who’s boss they are and the myriad ways a loving pet can make you feel guilty twenty four hours a day. This new edition of Merrill Markoe s classic collection of humorous essays gives readers the choicest selections along with brand new material.

In these razor sharp essays, Markoe recounts her dogs phone chats with animal communicators, her search for past lives, and her brief stint as a stun gun saleswoman. She describes the workshop that taught her how to launch an Internet po*rn business and another that gave proper instruction in the esoteric art of becoming a dominatrix.

She shares insight into what it is like to structure your day using only dog rules, how to spot a really horrible restaurant, and what it s like to have a romantic dinner with Fabio. There s even a bright side to preparing for the apocalypse: At last, it is time to forget about fat grams and low cholesterol. This enchantingly rambunctious and boundlessly enjoyable book gives you Merrill Markoe at her best. You ll devour it in one sitting and so may your pet.

How to Be Hap-hap-happy Like Me!

The hip and hilarious author of What the Dogs Have Taught Me returns with a comic approach to self help and happiness, heroically undertaking the task of acting out the best ‘how to be happy’ suggestions from the repository of wisdom on the subject, The 365 Days to a Happier Life desk calendar.

Merrill Markoe’s Guide to Love

When Merrill Markoe, successful comedian, two time author, and four time Emmy award winner, looked back at her life’s loves, she found a long track record with few successes. In this hilarious collection, Markoe walks ground that the average woman, lost in a sea of unsuccessful relationships, would never step on to present a bold, brazen, and brilliantly funny take on love and sex in the self help world of the nineties .

Cool, Calm & Contentious

In this hilarious collection of personal essays, New York Times bestselling author Merrill Markoe reveals, among other things, the secret formula for comedy: Start out with a difficult mother, develop some classic teenage insecurities, add a few relationships with narcissistic men, toss in an unruly pack of selfish dogs, finish it off with the kind of crystalline perspective that only comes from years of navigating a roiling sea of unpleasant and unappeasable people, and voil ! you re funny!But in Cool, Calm & Contentious, Markoe also reveals something more: herself. This is by far her most personal, affecting collection yet honest, unapologetic, often painful, but always shot through with the bracing, wicked sense of humor that has made her such a beloved and incisive observer of life, both human and canine. In Cool, Calm & Contentious, she goes there: from the anal retentive father who once spent ten minutes lecturing Markoe’s forty year old, Ph.D. wielding brother on how to fold a napkin, to the eternally aggrieved mother who took pleasure in being unpleasant to waiters and spent most of her life, Markoe says, in varying degrees of pissed off ; from the way she surrendered her virginity as a freshman in college to her, it was something to be gotten rid of quickly, then never discussed again, like body odor , to why, later in life, she ultimately came to find dogs so much more appealing than humans, Markoe holds nothing back. It s all here, in all its messy, poignant glory, and told the way only Merril Markoe knows how with honesty, wit, and bite. Cool, Calm & Contentious offers something for everyone fans of humorous essays, fans of memoir, fans of great writing and finely drawn characters, fans of dogs, fans of talking dogs, and fans of reading about mothers who are so difficult and demanding they actually make you feel good about your own life. But most of all, this book is for the many fans of Merrill Markoe, who will finally get a chance to learn what makes her tick and what makes her so funny and wise.