Book Reviews
Book Review By Julie Kish
Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith
A Memoir by Phil Hanley
Hardcover by Henry Holt and Co.
Audio version by MacMillan Audio
If you are unfamiliar with Canadian comedian Phil Hanley, you should go directly to YouTube and watch one of his sets. You’ll find yourself laughing uncontrollably and shouting to anyone near you, “Come here and check out this guy. He’s hilarious!” His signature “crowd work,” a type of witty banter with the audience, exemplifies his intelligence and lightning-fast thinking processes. He keeps his audience in stitches.
After years of climbing the ladder in the dog-eat-dog world of stand-up comedy, Phil Hanley has made a name for himself. He’s a headliner at the comedy clubs of New York City, is a favourite on the late-night talk show circuit, has written for a handful of feature films and has appeared as an actor in others.
Spellbound is not the book you would expect a comedian to write. Of course, it includes plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but Phil’s memoir is primarily a story about his lifelong struggle with severe, incapacitating dyslexia. He describes a heartbreaking life in which he despised school and prayed every night that he would “wake up smart.”
Phil was raised in Oshawa by extraordinarily supportive parents but was victimized by a school system ill-equipped to help him. It would be many years before he was diagnosed correctly. Year after year, his teachers wrote him off as lazy and unmotivated. Poor Phil fell further and further behind his friends, only passing to the next grade because his mother intervened.
Eventually, with the help of an exceptional teacher and some long overdue accommodations, Phil finally graduated from high school. He is eternally grateful to his mother, who did most of his homework. Unable to pursue college or any traditional job that involved reading skills, Phil’s life took many unconventional twists.
His first career took him to Europe, where he became a successful magazine and runway model. Although Phil claims he never had the body type of a typical male model, he was able to find work when some designers began to prefer their models to look like “sick chickens.” He found the work excruciatingly unfulfilling and moved back to Canada after four years. By then, his parents had moved to Vancouver, and he settled into their spare bedroom.
In the following years, Phil struggled with mental health issues and substance use as he tried his best to find a place for himself in a world where he felt he didn’t belong. Finally, he found himself on a stage with a microphone, a spotlight, and five minutes of jokes. From this moment on, Phil was hooked on stand-up.
His decision to write a book about living with dyslexia was driven by his desire to help others understand the condition. Astonishingly, Phil wrote the book and narrated the audio version, which he says was the most challenging thing he’s ever done. I highly recommend the audio version, which features charming outtakes between each chapter, spotlighting how difficult it is for Phil to read continuously for hours.
For more of Julie’s book recommendations, select the magnifying glass icon in the upper right of this page and search Book Reviews.