What is Your Life Story?: In the Form of a Question by Amy Schneider Review

I’ve long since cut the cord on paying for TV, and almost the only thing I miss is Jeopardy!. (I know it’s available on streaming now, but it’s not the same.) So I’ve never actually seen most of Amy Schneider’s record-setting appearances on the show—just a few clips here and there—but I certainly know of her, and when I ran across a reference to her autobiography, I picked it up at the library.

As both the most successful woman and the most successful trans contestant on Jeopardy!, Schneider has been pretty visible whether or not you’re a fan of the show. Still, I went in knowing almost nothing else about her than those two facts, with no preconceptions. I found her memoir engaging and very funny in places, but ultimately slight.

Schneider doesn’t go too deeply into her actual Jeopardy! experience, which was a bit of a disappointment for me. I am the kind of nerd who would be really into hearing about her favourite categories, how she prepared, what filming was like, questions she’s angry about having missed, and similar minutia.  (Yes, someday I will probably start taking the applicant test myself.) Instead, she glosses over the details and talks much more about the effect it had on her life and visibility. In some ways, in fact, it feels like she glosses over many of the topics she covers.

The memoir is fairly frank. Schneider talks extensively about the gradual process of discovering her trans identity, and as a cis woman, I found it interesting to read a narrative about someone who came out later in life rather than the “typical” trans story of always knowing they were not the gender assigned at birth. Schneider herself says that not fitting into that mould made it more difficult for her to understand herself, so it’s valuable to see reminders that there are multiple different, valid ways to be trans. I also love the way she talks about her bisexuality: her joy at learning that, having transitioned and escaped the masculinity she hated in herself, she could find masculinity desirable in others radiates off the page.

The book doesn’t follow a chronological narrative, but moves back and forth across Schneider’s life in a series of loosely interconnected essays—each, in a nod to Jeopardy!, titled with a question. These include “How Did You Get So Smart?” and “Why Is There So Much Drama Around Bathrooms?” as well as “Okay Then, So What Have Your Experiences With Drugs Been Like?” and “What Is a Home?”, so there’s quite a range. Some of them land much more strongly with me, while others—even as Schneider discusses very personal topics such as depression and her mother’s alcoholism—feel as though she’s still constructing an ironic detachment to keep the reader at a distance. 

Honestly, though, after reading Chapter Five, “What’s It Like To Be Famous?”, I feel like maintaining that distance is Schneider’s choice as well as her prerogative. She uses her identity and her fame to advocate for queer and trans causes, and this memoir itself is a gift to people who need to understand themselves better or want others to understand them. In places, she is extremely open. If there are other places where she chooses not to disclose all her feelings, good for her.

I read this as an ebook, and I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more as a physical book; Schneider uses footnotes heavily, mostly to provide ironic asides, and I found constantly clicking back and forth disruptive to my reading experience. Still, I finished it more or less in one sitting and genuinely laughed out loud at points (not least when Schneider admits she got into tarot “to meet women,” which chapter frankly left me wanting a reading from her). In fact, I kind of want to buy her a beer, and that’s a nice way to feel after a memoir like this.

Schneider has also written Who Is Amy Schneider?, billed as a young readers’ adaptation of this book. I love that she went to the effort to make the details of her life available to a younger audience. 

Kathryne Slant (she/her) is a queer Canadian writer and general pop culture enthusiast. She wants to spend less time online and more time at puppy yoga. Find her @SapphosHands.bsky.social.