Great Falls, MT
Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Comedian and musician Reggie Watts shares his story of growing up in Montana as a biracial oddball struggling to navigate life, girls, drugs, and his own identity in America’s heartland—and having a blast doing it.
Reggie Watts is weird. But you knew that. Anyone who’s seen his multifaceted, entirely improvised comedy and music shows knows that. Reggie Watts is also from the town of Great Falls, MT.
These two facts are not unrelated.
Watts grew up in Montana in the ‘80s, half French, half American, half white, half Black, speaking a bunch of different languages and slipping between the orchestra geeks and the football jocks until he finally found a squad of fellow misfits with an affinity for trouble. It was a wide-open time and place that invited freedom and exploration—as well as car theft and the not infrequent use of recreational cough syrup. And it helped him become the uniquely strange creative voice he is today.
In Great Falls, MT, Watts takes us through his story, hitting on the culture shock he experienced after moving from Europe to the heart of America, where he was called racial slurs by neighbors but wasn’t Black enough for his father’s extended family. Where he fought with his authoritarian dad, built a new family of antiestablishment, post-punk oddballs—and ultimately knew he had to leave. But after Watts’s career exploded in Seattle and New York, ultimately scoring him a nightly place next to James Corden on The Late Late Show, he found himself drawn back to his hometown after the deaths of his parents. This is his love letter to the town that made him. But like love itself, it’s messy and complicated and dirty and beautiful—and as weird and wonderful as Watts himself.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Wonderfully weird musician and comedian Reggie Watts revisits his formative years in this delightfully offbeat memoir. When your father is a Black air force serviceman from Cleveland and your mom is a fierce French woman who grew up under Nazi occupation, chances are you’re going to be an interesting kid. Watts chronicles his early life in Germany, Italy, and Spain and the family’s eventual move to the predominantly white town of Great Falls on the Missouri River, where he became achingly aware that he was different from the other kids. Watts shares his memories with his trademark humor and self-awareness, hashing through his experiences of racism, loss, and heartache but also dedicating entire chapters to zany subjects like waistcoats, shoehorns, and his enduring love of Pippi Longstocking. An ode to being weird, Great Falls, MT is a treat for fans of Watts’ eccentric, comedic music as well as anyone interested in tuning in to their own creative wavelength.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Comedian and musician Watts debuts with an animated love letter to Great Falls, Mont., that recounts his tangled coming-of-age there. In 1976, when Watts was four, he moved with his Black American father and white French mother from Madrid to Great Falls after his father was assigned to a nearby Air Force base. In junior high, competitive drama competitions gave Watts his first taste of onstage success, and through high school—even as he took up smoking weed, chugging Robitussin, and participating in acts of vandalism—he never stopped chasing that rush, consistently playing in bands and performing bizarre, Andy Kaufman–style improv and stand-up comedy. After high school, Watts set off for Seattle, where he joined the band Maktub, and then for New York City, where he gigged at comedy clubs until his star rose and he started making nightly appearances on The Late, Late Show. He ties it all together with a third-act return to Great Falls to care for his dying mother, during which he unpacks the influence Montana had on his life and career, and concludes, "there's no place better." Watts is a droll, endearing narrator, delivering his account with the rapid-fire patter of a good improv act. Budding performers and comedy fans alike will find much to love.
