Saying No Feels Great: The Millions Interviews Elissa Bassist
Having read her feminist memoir, Hysterical, it’s easy to imagine Elissa Bassist, a la Arya Stark, sharpening her pen and reciting the names of all the men who’ve wronged her.
There’s the on-again, off-again boyfriend/fiancé/nemesis—dubbed Fucktaco—who sporadically ghosted her over a tortured decade. The bosses who berated and belittled her. And the parade of doctors who tuned her out, downplaying her suffering, then prescribing drugs that compounded the pain until it throttled every part of her body.
That may not sound like fodder for comedy, but Bassist is a brilliant humorist who knows how to balance weight with wit. She describes an antidepressant as “an SSRI, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, if you’re nasty.” Envisioning losing her virginity as an adolescent, she swoons, “We’d do things to each other we couldn’t spell, and he’d whisper Pablo Neruda into my vagina.” With a voice so distinct, it’s no wonder her silence almost killed her.
We spoke via video-chat while Bassist, on her book tour, was getting settled in a Los Angeles hotel room.
(This interview has been lightly stylized like a medical questionnaire.)
Evan Allgood: Are you feeling healthy and well today?
Elissa Bassist: (laughs) Yes.
EA: Why did you laugh?
