To see the SCUM Manifesto’s humor, to let it crack you up page after page, is not to read it as a joke. It’s not. Valerie’s use of humor is not unlike any novelist’s use of fiction to hit at the truth. The truth of the world as seen though Valerie’s eyes is patently absurd, a cosmic joke. The hilarity in the Manifesto strikes me as fighting fire with fire. Humor such as this is a muscle, a weapon. It was the truth, and the truth is so absurd it’s painful.