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A bottle of Sprite. Custard with caramel.” Luckily my tastes hadn’t matured much since the age of thirteen, so I tucked right in. While I was eating he got up and went and picked up this book, an oversized photo album, and brought it back to the table. “I’ve been following you,” he said, and he opened it up. It was a scrapbook of everything I had ever done, every time my name was mentioned in a newspaper, everything from magazine covers to the tiniest club listings, from the beginning of my career all the way through to that week. He was smiling so big as he took me through it, looking at the headlines. “Trevor Noah Appearing This Saturday at the Blues Room.” “Trevor Noah Hosting New TV Show.” I felt a flood of emotions rushing through me. It was everything I could do not to start crying. It felt like this ten-year gap in my life closed right up in an instant, like only a day had passed since I’d last seen him. For years I’d had so many questions. Is he thinking about me? Does he know what I’m doing? Is he proud of me? But he’d been with me the whole time. He’d always been proud of me. Circumstance had pulled us apart, but he was never not my father. I walked out of his house that day an inch taller. Seeing him had reaffirmed his choosing of me. He chose to have me in his life. He chose to answer my letter. I was wanted. Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being. Once we reconnected, I was overcome by this drive to make up for all the years we’d missed. I decided the best way to do it was to interview him. I realized very quickly that that was a mistake. Interviews will give you facts and information, but facts and information weren’t really what I was after. What I wanted was a relationship, and an interview is not a relationship. Relationships are built in the silences. You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them—and that is what apartheid stole from us: time. You can’t make up for that with an interview, but I had to figure that out for myself. I went down to spend a few days with my father, and I made it my mission: This weekend I will get to know my father. As soon as I arrived I started peppering him with questions. “Where are you from? Where did you go to school? Why did you do this? How did you do that?” He started getting visibly irritated. “What is this?” he said. “Why are you interrogating me? What’s going on here?” “I want to get to know you.” “Is this how you normally get to know people, by interrogating them?” “Well…not really.” “So how do you get to know people?” “I dunno. By spending time with them, I guess.” “Okay. So spend time with me. See what you find out.” So we spent the weekend together. We had dinner and talked about politics. We watched F1 racing and talked about sports. We sat quietly in his backyard and listened to old Elvis Presley records. The whole time he said not one word about himself. Then, as I was packing up to leave, he walked over to me and sat down. “So,” he said, “in the time we’ve spent together, what would you say you’ve learned about your dad?”
“Nothing. All I know is that you’re extremely secretive.” “You see? You’re getting to know me already.”
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Copyright © 2016 by Trevor Noah Al
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IMMORALITY ACT, 1927 To prohibit il
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RUN Sometimes in big Hollywood movi
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like bouncers at a club, and hold t
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failed her she’d use her wits. If
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you stealing our customers? Why are
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there, this little boy and his mom,
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BORN A CRIME I grew up in South Afr
Page 20 and 21: Many of the prostitutes in town wer
Page 22 and 23: he hadn’t, but once I existed he
Page 24 and 25: Traveling around the world today, I
Page 26 and 27: TREVOR, PRAY I grew up in a world r
Page 28 and 29: That’s all she did, all day, ever
Page 30 and 31: speakeasy. The shebeens were where
Page 32 and 33: using sonar. Every time she called
Page 34 and 35: praying continued. It went on for s
Page 36 and 37: CHAMELEON One afternoon I was playi
Page 38 and 39: As a kid I understood that people w
Page 40 and 41: was an ocean of black, like someone
Page 42 and 43: Before apartheid, any black South A
Page 44 and 45: and uncles had gone off to the citi
Page 46 and 47: through those. My books were my pri
Page 48 and 49: If we weren’t at school or work o
Page 50 and 51: Apartheid, for all its power, had f
Page 52 and 53: at school used overhead projectors
Page 54 and 55: She shrugged again. “So sad. I ho
Page 56 and 57: “What?” “Look, did you or did
Page 58 and 59: When I was seven years old, my moth
Page 60 and 61: I grew up in a black family in a bl
Page 62 and 63: oth. She brought them home, and I w
Page 64 and 65: They went back and forth. This woma
Page 66 and 67: ROBERT My father is a complete myst
Page 68 and 69: dad’s, where we’d watch Formula
Page 73 and 74: W hen Dutch colonists landed at the
Page 75 and 76: your grandfather couldn’t keep hi
Page 77 and 78: Things like that happened a lot. I
Page 79 and 80: Revenge truly is sweet. It takes yo
Page 82 and 83: A YOUNG MAN’S LONG, AWKWARD, OCCA
Page 84 and 85: Valentine’s card and the flowers
Page 86 and 87: OUTSIDER After finishing primary sc
Page 88 and 89: work for it—and I still get my br
Page 93 and 94: me the digits one by one as I wrote
Page 95 and 96: COLORBLIND At Sandringham I got to
Page 97 and 98: pedestrian out for a stroll. Once I
Page 99 and 100: “Is it David?” “No.” “Ria
Page 104 and 105: I got up onstage and Tom did some t
Page 106 and 107: There was a red Mazda that we’d h
Page 108 and 109: hair and started painting this crea
Page 110 and 111: “Are you ready?” I said. “Let
Page 112: I’d been dating a girl for over a
Page 115 and 116: GO HITLER! When I was in grade nine
Page 117 and 118: Business was booming. By matric I w
Page 119 and 120: Back then, most DJs could spin for
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someone must be the toughest guy of
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My mind was racing, trying to figur
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THE CHEESE BOYS My friend Bongani w
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settlement going on. Third, Fourth,
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In the hood, even if you’re not a
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“But who did this belong to?” I
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“Hey, let’s make a deal. We’l
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Everyone must know that your succes
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e a whole lot harder for an investm
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O nce, when I was ten years old, vi
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lesson, and now that lesson is the
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me aside and told me what I was in
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first night, everyone was giving me
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couldn’t afford anything but a st
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“I-I’m not fine, Your Honor. I
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M y favorite thing to eat as a kid,
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could lift car engines and gearboxe
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Xhosa woman no less, a culture whos
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“Respect?! You almost burned down
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She gives and gives and gives; that
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on it as well. Clients were getting
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Bramley, three neighborhoods away,
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wouldn’t happen again, but it was
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“This is all I can do,” she sai
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“Where are you now?” I said.
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times he pulled the trigger, and fo
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emergency room to give us an update
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W hen my mother was shot, so much h
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For my mother. My first fan. Thank
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR TREVOR NOAH is a c
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