Press release

TORONTO – Thursday, December 17, 2015 – HarperCollins Publishers, will release the first memoir by the former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update host and stand-up comedian Norm MacDonald in Fall 2016. On publishing the book, senior editor Kate Cassaday—who acquired the novel from Joseph Veltre of The Gersh Agency—stated, “Norm’s is a voice unlike any other, so it’s fitting that he’s written a brilliant, hilarious memoir unlike anything ever published. Canadian publishing may never be the same after Based on a True Story, and HarperCollins couldn’t be prouder to be bringing this book to Norm’s legion of passionate fans.”

MacDonald will recount the story of his life—more or less—from growing up in rural Ottawa to a disastrous appearance on Star Search, through his many-layered career in entertainment. The trick for the reader will be deciphering which stories are real, and which are made up, by the infamous storyteller.

In a statement, MacDonald said, “I was born in Quebec City, English, where everyone was French. I was raised in rural Ontario, on a farm between Avonmore and Monkland. I ended up in New York City. But then what? I wrote this book to answer a question that has been troubling me for some time. Whatever Happened to Me?”

Norm MacDonald was recently a judge on the 2015 season of Last Comic Standing, and currently appears as Colonel Sanders in KFC ads. He is also the voice of The Hole on the new Canadian comedy show Sunnyside. He hosts the podcast Norm MacDonald Live and has appeared in Dirty Work, which he wrote, and Billy Madison, among many other films.

Based on a True Story will be published in the U.S. by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

 

HarperCollins Publishers is the second largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 18 countries. With nearly two hundred years of history and more than 65 unique imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year, in over 30 languages, and has a print and digital catalogue of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors have won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Man Booker Prize, and in Canada the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award, among many others. HarperCollins, headquartered in New York, is a subsidiary of News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) and can be visited online at corporate.HC.com. In Canada, visit www.harpercollins.ca.