Overqualified, Joey Comeau

Joey Comeau’s prose in Overqualified takes a jaw-droppingly innovative form; the book is told entirely through cover letters.  Comeau hilariously and smartly exploits the formulaic rhetoric of the cover letter, but the form is more than a gimmick; it allows for compelling storytelling.  The letters of Overqualified reveal a multi-faceted main character faced with disaster.

Don’t get me wrong—Overqualified is very, very funny.  The main character (also named Joey Comeau) ostensibly applies to top companies like HBO, Absolut Vodka, Nintendo, and General Electric.  Comeau’s tone remains interview-ready in the beginning of each of his cover letters, but this quickly gives way to angry tirades or wistful memories.  For instance, the book opens with a letter to Irving Oil: “I am writing to apply for a job with your company, and I have included my resume…but I think that it’s important to be honest: my assigned mission is to take you down, from the inside.”

The letters become increasingly personal and urgent, and littered with strange details about Comeau’s brother, Adrian, and his (ex?) girlfriend Susan.  In a letter to Airwalk, he writes, “Sometimes it feels good to fall off your skateboard…I’ve started to take disasters as good omens, like the death card in tarot decks.” Intriguingly, the positions that he applies for, and the addressees of the letters provide more clues about Comeau’s situation.  He applies to be an editor for the New York Times (citing his skills at revising his personal history), and writes a scathing letter to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in which he describes their ethics as “the perfect balance of medicine and assembly line.”

While Joey (the character) is not always likeable, he is fascinating and wickedly funny.  I briefly wondered about how much autobiography was contained in Comeau’s letters, but Overqualified left me with more significant questions: how much truth is ever in cover letters, in our writing about ourselves?