The Underminer: or, The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life

by Mike Albo, Virginia Heffernan

"You met in college, and nothing you've done since then is a secret. The underminer knows every foolish ambition you've harbored, every person you wish you'd never slept with, every lame, fleeting fashion trend you've embraced - and always manages to remind you. The underminer makes you feel suicidal. But The Underminer is your friend. You can't get rid of ... the Underminer." "Someone told you long ago that friends are spunky, loyal people who bring out your best. But this friend swerves casually in and out of your life, leaving you reeling with self-doubt at each encounter. No one prepared you for ... the Underminer." Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan channel this mysterious and insidious evil - one we have all encountered. Through fifteen years of booming successes and miserable failures, they trace how this powerful friend slowly and relentlessly dismantles the life of a nameless victim.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Comedy

176 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2005

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy crap, this book is hilarious. Just, wow. This book is just a bunch of monologues of this horrible, horrible person talking to her "friend". That's a bad description. In the little rewviews for this book, the Chicago Sun-Times described the underminer as "The kind of person who maanges to express that she cares about you in a way that makes you want to kill yourself"



Example:

"Ugh.. but actually more seriously I should tell you that I got stuck having to defend you to a group of people all night. It was kind of uncool. They were talking such trash about you and I was like your main defender...No one big. Just Sheila, Alfredo, Alfredo's friend Joanna, Tyler, and a bunch of people from Miramax. It was awful. I mean, all that party pleasantry aside - I'm actually a little miffed about the whole thing. That's such an unfair position to put me in. And I've had to do it so many times. I don't think you know how much people - not "hate"- but really are concerned about you.

Actually I can't deal with you getting randomly emotional now. I'm really upset about it.

I'm sorry. I don't want to be an asshole about this. Why don't you just have some water and chill out and then maybe write your apology notes. Things will get better"

And also, I won't quote it in it's entire context because I don't want to quote the entire book but I found this part hilarious. He/She said (to her friend who was freaking out on mushrooms)

"Phew! Do you hear that whislting? That sound, coming closer, coming closer. The land and air are merging into one. A screeching sky of demonic hawks...Can you hear me? You probably can't. I probably sound far away...Like a voice pulling away...Until you are flaoting on a fabric made of detached whispers. A voice that slips inside your head, a secret you can barely keep. A haunt. A hate. Or maybe just the air"

Screeching sky of demonic hawks. WIN.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I wanted to punch someone in the face a bit. The ending was a bit morbid, but it definitely got the point across.

[Natasha O'rourke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is hilarious and a super quick read, like one day at the beach quick. It's basically an homage to passive agressiveness and fakeness among women. I guarantee you will see someone you know in this book.

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious!

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't that funny at all. My friend who gave it to me fucked the author, so I was suspicious of its content. I related a little bit to the friend in the story which depressed me greatly.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever had that one friend who, despite always putting on their best face to you, just seems to be slowly tearing you apart from the inside out? Then this book is for you. No, this is not a self-help book or an advice piece on how to deal with it. Instead, it is a narrative of one person and their encounters with their own personal “underminer” throughout a 16-year period. Each chapter is an individual encounter with this person and every word of text is the spoken word of the underminer. The rest of the dialogue is left to you to fill in; it’s easy enough to do. And the results might frighten you as you discover that much of what is said in this novel could easily apply to someone you know or even to yourself.

The only thing that really bugged me about this book were the flawed pop cultural references that the author uses to set the scene and make the underminer look that much worse. Some of them just don’t work (The Sopranos in 1997? The series didn’t debut until 1999. Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman as a couple in 1993? They didn’t meet until they worked together on Gattaca, which was released in 1997. There are others.) and, while I admit that this is not necessarily the biggest deal considering the overarching theme of the book, I feel it is important for these facts to be accurate to add the proper level of credibility to what is being said. It was enough to distract from my own reading experience.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

"...then I turned in that green form so I could graduate. You know, the green form. You didn't turn it IN? No, not the blue form. The green form. They gave it to us at freshman orientation. You lost it? Sorry. I mean, that really sucks. But it was kind of a big deal. I don't know if they'll, like, let you graduate. I can't believe you didn't turn it in. But I mean, whatever, there's always August graduation..."

[Jennifer Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed, I cringed, I almost cried for the object of the underminer's affection/dissection/rejection. The author(s) absolutely nail that personality type, one I think everyone has encountered at some point along the way. The toxic friend. The one who forces us to compare ourselves with him/her and makes us feel small just by being alive. It's so painful, but hard to look away, like a wreck. Fun, in a skin-crawling way.

[Tori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and cool way to tell a story: through the words of an “undermining” friend. Plot details and even the most basic characteristics of our protagonist are gained through the back-handed statements of this undermining character. Funny, clever, and well-told as it may be, I do think this sort of framing would have benefitted more from being in a shorter form. The unique presentation could get just a little bit tedious after some time.

[Tami · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been wanting to read this book for several years and finally saw it at my new (AND TOTALLY AWESOME) main library. It kind of made me want to kill myself. But I guess that's the point, right?
The writing was extremely effective in telling the story, but the narrator was miserable in order to make that happen so it's a bit of a catch 22.

[Rozanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the perfect book to read while perched on a sand dune, half paying attention to the book and half being mesmerized by the Pacific Ocean.

It's not great literature, but it's pretty funny satire.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was hilariously passive-aggressive. I winced with laughter at every chapter. Mike Albo is a very funny writer especially satirizing pop culture. This book should be updated every five years!!

[Lindsay Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book like five times. It's always hilarious.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

hilariously sad. we've all had an undermining friend who says horrible things to us disguised as compliments : "you have a normal body, people get too hung up on thinness, you're more like an average American", or helping : "you should really try yoga, it really helped to center me when I was going through a hard time and a little exercise wouldn't hurt, wink wink." The kind of kindness that makes you want to punch someone in the face. I really wish thay had been the end of the story, the protagonist finally punching this person.

[Nicole Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly what I thought it would be

But I did enjoy it. We all have that friend, the one who has done it all, and let's you know about it. Don't let your underminer take your soul. That's the truth.

[Tracey Sinclair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sharply written, but it's basically one joke stretched very thin. Probably would have worked better as a short story.

[Felicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Robert Giesenhagen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remember this being good but also thinking that it seemed really pretentious.

[Patrick Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never been so enraged and humored at the same time. Ugh that person sucks!!

[Darlene Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it painful. Not the writing, which was good, but the thousand cuts of the Underminer.

[Christoph Weber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couple dozen pages in and not one funny thing among it. Tossed it out.

[Izlinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking up humor/satire books online and this one was recommended to me. The public library had it, so I borrowed it.

It's not written like a self-help book. It's more like a conversation you would have with this best friend, the underminer, except the author only writes down what they say, not you. (But it's easy to fill in the blanks.) The part of the blurb that says "To understand and resist your toxic friend, you need The Underminer" is a bit false because it doesn't give you tips on how to react, or how to steer the conversation away from sensitive topics. Nor does it give any hint as to the underminer's motives, but just what you would hear in a conversation. So I was glad I read reviews before I read the book or else the actual format would've been a shock.

The chapters go from college graduation all the way through post-graduation years/meeting each others to the "best friend" giving a eulogy at "your" funeral. They're pretty short, but I'd recommend reading it in short snippets, if you are going to read it. After all it seems repetitive, and the heavy harping on pop culture references to show how successful the best friend is gets kind of old. Even though the chapters have years to show how much time has passed, references to old events/people still feel fresh to the reader so it loses its punch in that way.

I did like the illustrations they had at the end of each chapter. Especially the advertisements for Askalar because it makes so much fun out of pharmaceutical advertising!

I mentioned this book during dinner with some girlfriends and one of them brought up someone they knew who was like that (the underminer) and gave some examples. I don't think I've stuck around in one place long enough to get to know an underminer and I'm pretty transparent about embarrassing things I do. There are times some people mention things I'd rather not be reminded about, either things I told them about, or things they saw/knew happened (my suicide attempt and how that affected my family, my ex-boyfriend and his current girlfriend, walking into a clear translucent door in front of someone I liked, this one time I threw up on someone a few years ago) but they don't consistently mention it that I think they're an underminer. Though that last one is kind of humorous if I'm in the right kind of mood! Sometimes I think they mentioned it to remind me how much time has passed since and that I've changed. Hopefully. At least I'm a bit more aware of where doors begin and end! And to pay more attention to my body when I'm feeling nauseous!

This isn't really a book I would recommend because I don't think a lot of my friends read humor/pop-culture satire, and it gets to be repetitive quite quickly. But it's not a book I didn't manage to finish either, or one I would recommend people away from, so my 3-stars just basically show my neutrality to it. The premise of it is a good conversation starter.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good God. I had fairly low expectations for this, but I expected it to be light, not terrible. I don't know that I've ever read, and I hope I never do read, a more flat character. This Underminer is crushingly boring; she's just a straight-up bitch. I don't know why anyone would want to spend an entire novel listening to her go on about how wonderful her life is and how shitty the unnamed (and unspeaking) protagonist's (I guess?) is. There are no surprises here (except for the epilogue, which is less surprise and more weirdness, like this out-of-left-field attempt at surprise, at arc, at something); it's actually downright predictable. The same basic joke is used over and over and over, some fairly specific jokes are used more than once. There are inconsistencies throughout: In one chapter the Underminer is a vegemarian (eye roll) and has been for twelve years, in the next she orders chicken. I guess this means she's somewhat of a liar. That's fine, I guess, though it threw me. A fictitious drug is spelled two different ways in one sentence. Which is more the editor's fault, I guess.

We never hear the protagonist's side of the story, though we do get that laughably horrible "Your dog's name is Checkers and he's sick from eating bugs? And you can't figure out what to do about it? And you aren't going out with Jake anymore" type stuff to keep the Underminer talking. Just horrid. I read this because I really enjoy Virginia Heffernan's column in the Times, like really enjoy it. This was pretty damn disappointing. Basically, imagine the voice at the beginning of "Undone - The Sweater Song," except imagine the person speaking is an absolute and horrible bitch. And then imagine that voice goes on for an entire novel. This is exactly what this book is.

[Pembroke Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great and distressing story. The entire story is told in first person from the perspective of the underminer. You get snipits of the other characters' life from what the underminer says, but you never get to read their thoughts or see how they are feeling. I really liked how it worked.

I could only read the story in chunks. The underminer is so vile, but in a very subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) way. Mike did a great job of creating her. Mike also did a great job of making you wonder if you should really hate the underminer. Yes, she's a horrible person who casually destroys another persons life, but at the same time, can you really begrudge her her success? I found myself torn about this. I mean, she got where she was because she went to school and then worked hard. She was a horrible braggart about it, and when she could and should have helped her "friend" she didn't, so that part was reprehensible, but we really don't know anything about the other friend except what we see through the underminer's eyes, and how reliable is that? Besides, why didn't the other friend just avoid the underminer all together? Why did she constantly keep showing up at the parties and other functions? Granted, some of them were chance encounters, but a lot of them weren't. I found myself questioning the motives of the friend.

I recommend reading this book for something a little different and to make you thankful for the people you have around you. If you have a friend that sounds exactly like the underminer, I suggest kicking them to the curb!

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny it was and funny it wasn't. This book is co-written by a stand-up comedian, and he did definitely make me laugh (or if I were a cryer, I might have even cried) through some of the absurd dialogue that is the guts of this book. It has a clever style of writing--complete one-sided conversations with your friend, the underminer, doing ALL of the talking.

Some of us at a time in our lives, or perhaps some of us, way too much in our lives, have a friend, or a so-called friend, who undermines much of what we do. (Actually the fact that I have had more than my share of this type as a close friend, has been a bit relevatory as to what I do or don't do that invites this type of person into my closest circle of friends--"oh, you made home-made marshmallows? most of us just spend 5 minutes to run down the street to the store to pay 95 cents for a bag"). They take the air out of your sails, the steam out of your engine, and turn the self pat on your back into a slap.

I enjoyed the book for the humor, but the taking of the Lord's name in vain every other paragraph was wearying, and the extreme self-loathing experiences of the person, who would be the you in this story--stone drunk, puking, self-medicating, doing mushrooms, made the book less fun and much less relatable, then if he'd just stuck with the everyday experiences that we've all had with the underminer, that given time, become very laughable experiences.

[Diane Ramirez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the cover of this book quite misleading -- I thought it was one of the business self-help books about misplaced cheese or moving from better to best based on the green green background and the diablito putting his arm around the obvious protagonist (I even began thinking, who in my office would fit into the "underminer" description?). But my assumption couldn't be further from the truth. This was actually a pretty funny and maddening book about a couple of dudes that keep running into each other over the years and their little catch-up conversations. One guy is a loser and the other guy is an arrogant condescending fella whose life just gets better and better all the time. While the other guy just... ages. I'll agree with other reviewers that this was too long (at barely 165 pages!), but it gave me enough LOL moments to plow through that last 50 pages. Interestingly, I couldn't even really see it, but the loser guy wasn't so much a loser guy and pathetic as his underminer made him out to be. He's really what most of us are!

Which is to say that I had the most uncomfortable feeling of relating to the loser guy. dang...

[Edward O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very fine entry in the all-too-small category of superb short comic novels.

It's written in the second person by the person--guy, gal, it's never spelled out, it works either way--who is constantly doing better than you, constantly patronizing you, constantly stealing your ideas, your ambitions, your soul.

How rare it is that we can acknowledge resentment and envy in our culture. Oh, sure, we obsess endlessly on stars and their flaws, but if this star is too thin or that one's gained weight, we never acknowledge that OUR envy drives the whole machinery.

"The Underminer" is very nakedly about success and failure and the way envy eats away at the soul. It's pitch-perfect in voice, dead-on in aim.

I've bought MULTIPLE copies of the hardcover to give as gifts. At first I gave it to friends, and they seemed offended.

Now I just give it to people I hate--to poison them.

And I tell everyone this so they won't know which category they're in.

The Underminer strikes again.

[Mythili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I didn't read all of this. In fact, I almost didn't read any of it. As much as I enjoy the writings of Wahoo New Yorkers Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan, when this book came out, I thought the premise -- the entire book is a passive aggressive monologue of an intimate frenemy who lingers for decades -- was gimmicky (and possibly totally annoying), so I steered clear. An extra copy was sitting around the office earlier this week, though, so I gave it a whirl. Zooming through the opening bit ("you know, the green form"!) the Kinkos scene, the morning-after-brunch, the Conde Nast cafeteria run-in -- oh man. We've all been there. Your funny bone will ache. I'm hanging on to this and plan to take quick, potent hits from it as needed.

[Megano! · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, I was hoping there would be a positive or comedic note lurking somewhere in this book. However, I was disappointed the best friend who casually destroys your life was just too depressing, It killed the satire. And just made the underminer seem cruel and the protagonist seem pathetic. I first heard about this book from a review on NPR and was in stitches, as the author read excerpts aloud, and I was really hoping to have a similar experience. It was funny at first but just became frustrating.

[Reese · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had two or three laugh-out-loud moments, but overall it was just irritating and depressing. I know that was sort of the point, to portray a character that makes our protagonist feel that way, but I feel like all this book did was annoy and depress me, which I only have time for if it's also really really good in some other way that makes it all worth it. This one wasn't quite worth it. At least it was a quick, easy read, and now I'm looking forward to something more stimulating.

[Elisha Condie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Underminers! I've always hated the people who pretend to be your friend and yet subtly jab at you, so you never know where you stand. This entertaining book was reviewed on Diane Ream's show, and so I read it. It is very funny, written in chapters of conversations, only you only hear the underminer side ("Wow! You look sick! Are you okay?")...and while it is maddening, it is still funny. Some of it may sound familiar though, I'm warning you. . . .