Book Review: Nate Bargatze tries to bring his comedy from screen to page with ‘Big Dumb Eyes’

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This article was published 05/05/2025 (350 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a rite of passage for all comedians: Work like crazy on the stand-up circuit, hit it big, record live specials for a streaming platform, and then write a book that can never quite measure up to your live act.

Consider “Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind” by Nate Bargatze. I laughed so hard I cried during parts of his Netflix special “Your Friend, Nate Bargatze.” But I can count on two hands the laugh-out-loud moments I experienced as I read “Big Dumb Eyes.” That’s not because Mr. Bargatze isn’t funny. Books just aren’t the funniest mediums for stand-up comics. Bargatze’s live act flows from his droll, self-deprecating delivery. And while he tries right there in the book’s subtitle — “Stories from a Simpler Mind” — the humor just doesn’t have the same impact on the page as it does the screen.

Bargatze seems to realize this, writing in his introduction that he is “very on the record about not liking to read books.” Alas, the publisher, and good ol’ fashioned capitalism, apparently convinced him that he should write one.

All that said, for super fans or anyone who would rather read funny stories than watch Bargatze tell them on TV, “Big Dumb Eyes” is a quick read. There are even grainy, black and white photos of Bargatze through the years with his family. If you haven’t already watched his specials, you’ll learn a lot about his upbringing — from the sense of humor and theatrical nature he inherited from his father, the greatest clown and magician to ever work in Old Hickory, Tennessee, to the role his decade-younger sister, Abigail, played in keeping him from being completely self-centered growing up.

My favorite chapter, the one with the most LOL moments, is called “My Sister the Alien” and recounts the time when Nate, his brother Derrick and their dad forgot to bring Abigail home from church one Wednesday night. They all realize when they get home that Abigail isn’t with them and dad’s first words are “Do not tell your mother.” When they drive back to the church, Abigail is with a couple, who found her in the church cemetery “passing from tombstone to tombstone communing with the dead like the devil’s phantasm.”

Bargatze tells quite a few stories about his wife, Laura, as well, and near the end Laura even chimes in via footnotes, as if she’s reading the book along with you. “Obviously I knew about this, too. Now that I think about it, go ahead and tell Nate. I can’t wait to see the look on his face,” reads one after Nate shares how he had to ask his parents to pay for her engagement ring.

At the end, in a two-page “Conclusion,” Nate offers his congrats to readers who make it that far, scolding anyone who got through all 222 pages in one sitting. “You should probably move around some more. Or sprinkle in some other healthier activities, like watching TV,” he writes. It’s good advice. I suggest “Your Friend, Nate Bargatze.”

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