From the host of the Normal Gossip podcast, anexploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir.
Contains some amusing historical accounts ... The book is laden with references to very recent history; topics that were obviously the talk of le tout internet at the time of writing but already feel dated ... I...lost track of what the point was ... Much juicier are the anonymous anecdotes and vignettes slipped between chapters, which serve to illustrate how gossip is used in real life ... The essays don’t dig deep enough into her ambivalence about gossip to come away with any big ideas.
While the overall result sometimes lacks the intrigue or the ferocious momentum of a good second- or thirdhand yarn, You Didn’t Hear This From Me raises thoughtful questions about an under-examined topic, and offers some delights and epiphanies along the way ... The questions that drive McKinney’s investigation of a universal human habit are wide-ranging ... To many of these, McKinney finds satisfying answers, or at least compelling arguments.
We get sprinklings of science: citations of philosophers, anthropologists, neuroscientists, ethicists ... McKinney’s big point is that gossip is a fundamentally human behavior, and she does not tire of making it ... Gossip is a big topic, and McKinney is not afraid to go broad with it. She tosses off sweeping claims ... McKinney sounds like the kind of person who plagued her as a young gossiper: a scold.
