Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

I'm glad I stuck with this book to the end because that was were the great storytelling occurred. Trevor Noah writes just as he talks, and I can only take his humor in small doses. His flippancy gets to me after a bit. The picture he paints of growing up in South Africa, even post-apartheid, is so bleak that it's hard for me to appreciate the humor that Noah employs in unfolding the story of his early life. Though this is his own autobiography, Noah's chief accomplishment is in painting a portrait of his mother, Patricia Noah, whom he loves and appreciates in his own Trevor way. Toward the end of the book, he writes, "When you love someone you create a new world for them. My mother did that for me...." Though it's not my style, I've come to appreciate those like Trevor Noah who try to make the world a less hostile place by poking fun of its injustice and corruption. Like Mark Twain, Trevor Noah knows that humor is a powerful weapon, perhaps as powerful as his mother's prayers.