It’s no secret that celebrities use ghostwriters for their memoirs. It’s the main reason why I find them generally unappealing, with very few exceptions. I want to experience and appreciate the author’s voice, not an interpretation of someone else’s voice.

Norm Macdonald understood this. He initially refused his own celebrity memoir, calling them “one step below instruction manuals.” But then he got a nutty idea, and decided to spend two years on a farm in northern Canada drafting an anti-memoir.

Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir was the result, and you can take the title at face value. It can best be described as a memoir-ish memoir that pokes fun at memoirs. Macdonald shat on the entire concept of a memoir and created one of the best memoirs ever written.

The reason I mention ghostwriters is because Macdonald knew that readers would assume he used one, so he did something wildly original. He inhabited the persona of a ghostwriter, then put him through an existential crisis as he tried to inhabit Norm Macdonald, someone he saw as tragically unfunny.

The results are absolutely hilarious. The ghostwriter makes appearances throughout the book as he tries to make sense of this mountainous assignment. He feels that his talents are being wasted, becomes increasingly depressed, and ultimately finds solace in writing suicide notes.

The darkly dry humor is pitch-perfect Macdonald, and any fan of his comedy will instantly recognize the tone. It’s a truly impressive feat to write in one voice, then switch to another voice to lament the first voice. It culminates in a chapter called Word For Word, which I won’t spoil. I laughed through the entire thing.

I can confidently say that Based on a True Story is the best memoir I have ever read. But it’s not a memoir. It was just Norm being Norm. And if you understand his unique approach to humor, then you know exactly what to expect. For everyone else, the absurdity was the point.

RIP, Norm. Your singular voice is sorely missed.