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It won’t surprise you to hear that Rachel Bloom – star and co-creator of The CW’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” which aired its series finale last year – was a growing stage girl.
You probably know this type of person. Someone outspoken, inclined to jazz hands and full of energy. But they probably also have a calm with them, something they might forget between them too.
“Theater kids have misconceptions about themselves,” Bloom tells USA TODAY. “I think they don’t realize that other people around them are going through problems or are vulnerable.”
Bloom delves into this vulnerability in his new memoir, “I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are” (Grand Central Publishing, 280 pp.), out Tuesday. He writes candidly here as he did on his show, talking about everything from sexual pleasure to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). While writing about mental health may seem very brave, Bloom doesn’t see it that way.
“The more specific you become with your insecurities, or when it comes to mental health, like your mental health journey, the more people relate to it,” says Bloom. “There was no reason for me not to be vulnerable in this book, because it’s stuff I’m not ashamed of anymore and being vulnerable so far has paid off.”
Flashback: Rachel Bloom of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” welcomes first child during a coronavirus pandemic
What exactly is this book? Satire, fan fiction and more
Viewers of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” will feel at ease reading Bloom’s experimental essays that turn into hyperbole and satire, swinging between deeper topics like OCD and lighter topics like bathroom breaks.
“I wanted to write the kind of book I like to read, which is more comedic pieces based on real things and real emotions,” says Bloom. One such controversy is his criticism of heterosexual men in musical theater and the fact that 80% of them are irredeemable human beings.
“There’s a nuance to the mix that I omitted for comic purposes in the book,” says Bloom. “But yeah, some straight men in musical theater are terrible and unbearable, and they’re the worst. And no one is calling them out, so this is my time and my chance.”
Readers will also find many important footnotes riddled throughout the book, where Bloom shares further insights. In one chapter, he writes “Harry Potter” fan fiction, but condemns JK Rowling’s derogatory comments about the transgender community in a footnote.
“I still don’t know how to reconcile or deal with it, and I don’t know if I ever will,” he says.
More on this topic here: How “Harry Potter” trans fans grapple with JK Rowling’s legacy after her transphobic comments
‘Doesn’t seem quite real yet’: Rachel Bloom on Adam Schlesinger’s death
At the start of the pandemic, Bloom gave birth to her first child, a daughter, only to deal with the devastating loss of one of her best friends, Adam Schlesinger, around the same time. Schlesinger, co-founder of the band Fountains of Wayne and songwriter of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”, died of complications from the coronavirus in the spring.
“It’s real in my personal narrative now, but it doesn’t feel quite real yet,” he says. “So I’m sure I’ll work on it and feel the repercussions.”
As for her newborn, Bloom felt like the globe was having a newborn with her. The world apparently closed with her during her maternity leave, almost like a worldwide maternity leave, she says. But it doesn’t escape her that people can’t hold the baby and she can’t go to mom and me’s classes.
Raising her daughter was her main focus during quarantine, as might be expected. She enrolled in an online music composition class, but like many productivity attempts during the pandemic, she didn’t follow up.
“I wasn’t troubled by the adult coloring book issue, just because my son is my adult coloring book,” says Bloom.
RIP OFF: Emmy-winning singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne dies of coronavirus at age 52
On bullying: “We’re all messed up”
Bloom devotes a good portion of the book to talking about bullies: the classic bullies of childhood, and then those you find in the workplace as an adult. Bloom accidentally reconnected with a childhood bully after one of her live shows, the first time she had an idea of a bully’s head.
“That conversation only helped my journey to realize that we’re all messed up,” he says.
He also describes misogyny and the effects of patriarchy in the writers’ quarters where he worked. As for patriarchy, “everyone is expected to play certain roles, including men,” he says. When men feel the need to assert themselves and try to overcome the difficulties of their life through comedy, for example, it can create toxicity.
“We’re having some necessary conversations now about what bullying really is, what workplace intimidation really is,” says Bloom.
Rachel Bloom’s favorite bathrooms
Bloom’s humor is the blood that pumps the heart of the book – and after an entire chapter devoted to her need to decompress on the toilet, we had to ask ourselves: where are her favorite bathrooms?
He identified two: the bathrooms of a Japanese restaurant in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood – great bathrooms with hot bidets – and those of Sketch, a London restaurant. Each toilet is in a small “alien pod” aka “Instagram-friendly”.
5 books not to be missed: The presidential memoirs of Barack Obama; more by Dolly Parton, Michael J. Fox
In case you got lost: “I work on my emotional recovery daily”: Mariah Carey reveals true vulnerability in a new memoir
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