The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer

This is apparent throughout her book for example, she will compare an elderly African American woman to “a California raisin”, then to add hastily: “That is not racist.

Schumer is at an awkward point in her career now, transitioning out of the dumb white woman stage persona she created over the last decade – when she’d say such things as “I used to date Hispanic guys, but now I prefer consensual” – and trying to become more palatable to the mainstream. Presumably she would feel less obliged to include such typically femoir-esque “you go girl!” sentences as, “I feel beautiful and strong” (which contradict less cliched lines such as, “I sometimes forget a man may have actual feelings for me”). The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo is not, she writes, a memoir: “I just turned 35, so I have a long way to go until I am memoir-worthy.” But considering she discusses everything from her hatred of watercress to her bowel movements before a show, it’s hard to imagine what else she could include in an autobiography. Schumer started doing standup in her early 20s and, within a decade, had achieved huge success. At the same time, her father developed MS and her parents’ marriage collapsed after her mother had an affair with the father of Schumer’s best friend. Schumer has an interesting story to tell: she was born into a family of privilege, but her parents lost all their money when she was a child she went from taking private jets to the Bahamas to sharing a bed with her mother in a basement flat. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo is the femoir from Amy Schumer, one of the highest profile comedians in the world right now. The bar is still so low, it is apparently a triumph of equality when a woman admits to enjoying sex But there is a fine line between a woman feeling able to say something and feeling obliged to do so for her brand.

These books are invariably pitched as feminist statements because the bar is still so low, it is apparently a triumph of equality when a woman admits to enjoying sex. The limitations of the femoir reveal how narrow the parameters still are for women in the public eye, who are expected to be exceptional but also an everywoman. It will include anecdotes about how the writer is insecure but also, like, really strong, and there will be a continual emphasis on how the writer is fallible but simultaneously inspirational. Whereas a memoir will underline its subject’s uniqueness, the femoir intimates that the author is just like the reader. Since 2012, there have been femoirs from pretty much every high-profile American female comedian under 50, and with repetition the format has calcified. If Fontana’s term seemed niche then, it feels ubiquitous now.

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer