I like Trevor Noah. Though he is not Jon Stewart, he has held his own on The Daily Show and his outsider's perspective on our politics feels fresh. So it was with pleasure that I listened to Noah read his autobiographical book. His childhood growing up in Soweto was hard. The fact that he had a white father made his birth a crime, and though he did meet with occasionally with his father, he wasn't around. Later his mother married Abel, who was abusive. We get to see a post apartheid world, where things are not easy. I somehow had missed that there are so many languages spoken in South Africa, that it becomes another barrier. Poverty, racism, classism, the various neighborhoods. I did not know South Africans were given real names and then European names. Trevor uses mostly the European names, and it does not look like he had a South African name himself. One of the strangest stories he told was about a great street dancer named Hitler, which did not go over very well in a Jewish school. It was interesting to see from their perspective, that Hitler was just a name, with no inferences. Trevor was lucky his mother provided him with books and good schooling to get him out of the poverty cycle, though he spent some time after high school dealing in pilfered music. His mother was very religious and trusted God and Jesus. There is a story of a miracle at the end of the book that I like to think was the result of her strong belief. We know it all ends well and though he mentions his career as a comedian, he doesn't tell us how he got there. I am sure that will be material for another book. His sense of humor got me through the hard parts of his book.
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