Wherever You Go, There They Are

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2017 Annabelle Gurwitch



Moo Goo Gai Pan was a swashbuckling adventurer who sailed the seven seas carousing and plundering and generallyyo-ho-ho-ing it up. At least, that was Pan s MO according to my father, Harry Gurwitch. If my dad has one talent, it s the ability to spin a yarn. Pan and his exploits were our bedtime stories during the six or so months in 1967 that our family crashed at my aunt Gloria s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

I was in kindergarten and had just gotten the hang of buttoning myself into my Wright School for Girls pinafore when my parents packed up Mom s wood-paneled Chevy Caprice station wagon and drove north from Mobile to Wilmington. We arrived with only the suitcases that fit in the car.

We pulled up to the house and my mother took to her bed in a nylon peignoir set. It wasn t actually her bed, it was the twin bed with a Snoopy comforter in my cousin Shari s bedroom, and she didn t emerge again for several months. Shirley Gurwitch was in mourning for her life, to borrow from Chekhov. Aunt Gloria and Uncle Jack folded my sister and me into their brood. My maternal grandmother, Frances, slipped money to Gloria and Jack every week to feed and clothe us. My mother says she still has PTSD from the trauma of having to move back home and in with her sister.

My mother had big little-girl dreams. Her childhood diaries hint at a desire to become an actress, an aspiration that she was too shy to pursue and would not have been well received by her parents.* Whereas my father s family was colorful and risk taking, my mother s was unassuming and hardworking. Frances wanted to go into nursing, but only the boys in her family got educations and she ended up a clerk in the county welfare department. Her father, Johnny Maisel, was a movie projectionist. The work was anything but glamorous. The profession attracted taciturn loners who were

Annabelle Gurwitch is an actress and the author of I See You Made an Effort (a New York Times bestseller and Thurber Prize finalist); You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up (coauthored with Jeff Kahn); and Fired! (which was also a Showtime Comedy Special). Gurwitch gained a loyal following during her stint cohosting Dinner and a Movie on TBS and years as a regular commen­tator on NPR. She s written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Hollywood Reporter. Gurwitch was the news anchor on HBO s Not Necessarily the News and hosted WA$TED on Planet Green network. Her acting credits include Seinfeld, Boston Legal, Dexter, and Melvin Goes to Dinner. A veteran of many lauded and even more misguided theatrical productions, she regularly performs at arts centers around the country. Gurwitch is a Jewish mother, a reluctant atheist, and an ardent environmentalist. She is empty nesting in Los Angeles.

A smart, edgy writer As a memoirist, Gurwitch succeeds by evoking emotions that cut to the core of our humanity, and giving us laughs along the way.
Mort Zachter, Los Angeles Review of Books

A vivacious confessional The memoir s madcap joy is the entire Gurwitch clan of scenery chewers With her moonshine-smuggling forebears and her brothel matron great-grandmother, Gurwitch joins the shell-shocked ranks of dysfunctional-family chroniclers Augusten Burroughs and Sean Wilsey.
Natalie Beach, O Magazine

Sagacious wit and soulful insights with a dash of Nora Ephron.
Cynthia Romanowski, Coast Magazine

"Once I started Wherever You Go, There They Are, I couldn t put it down. This book is hysterically, laugh-out-loud funny take it on an airplane and be prepared to enjoy your flight."
Judy Greer, actress and author of I Don't Know What You Know Me From
 
I love spending time under the spell of Annabelle Gurwitch, who lived all these crackpot adventures so we don t have to. Her unforgettable stories about family and other disasters remind us how insane this world can be, and how necessary our laughter.
Sarah Hepola, author of Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
 
I had to invent a word to describe this book. It s Luffaw : a guffaw with a poignant awww as well. You'll relate to Annabelle Gurwitch s stories about finding your people and working with the ones you were given.
Jen Kirkman, author of I Can Barely Take Care of Myself 
 
Annabelle Gurwitch takes a sharp-eyed, un-fool-able, and hilarious look at her family's loopy pursuit of the American Dream in Wherever You Go, There They Are. Wherever she goes, you'll want to follow her!
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
 
Annabelle Gurwitch's book is really funny. That is, when you aren't choking up, you'll be laughing. Her parents are