You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip isn’t a volume of titillating tales. Rather, in this well-researched, passionate ode to shared storytelling, the journalist and author of novel God Spare the Girls (2021) interrogates the concept of gossip, examines its place in popular culture, and reflects on its role in her own life.
Rather, in this well-researched, passionate ode to shared storytelling, the journalist and author of the novel God Spare the Girls interrogates the concept of gossip, examines its place in popular culture and reflects on its role in her own life.
McKinney traces her gossip origin story back to her childhood in the evangelical Christian faith, which considers gossip “unequivocally, absolutely an affront against God, closer to murder or adultery than dancing.” Now, having left the church, she asserts, “It is certainly true that gossip is not helpful if your goal is to maintain the status quo and keep the peace, but those are two things Jesus Himself was very uninterested in doing.” Especially, she realized, when “the codifying of gossip as a sin could be used as a shield for misbehaving men in power to subjugate women in their congregations.”
The theme of gossip as liberation echoes throughout You Didn’t Hear This From Me, as does its ability to inform and, often, prevent harm, create community and help us better understand ourselves. McKinney adeptly leads readers through in-depth consideration of everything from the epic of Gilgamesh to Gossip Girl, saucy Doja Cat lyrics and Françoise Gilot’s Life With Picasso, analyzing gossip-adjacent phenomena like urban legends, conspiracy theories and whisper networks along the way.
McKinney’s fans are sure to be just as obsessed with You Didn’t Hear This From Me as they are with the “Normal Gossip” podcast she created and hosted for three years, wherein she and guests reveled in anonymous listener-submitted juicy stories. (Launched in 2022, the pod has 10 million listens and counting; in December 2024, McKinney handed the reins to a new host.) Her voice is smart and funny, and her arguments for considering gossip valuable and meaningful are compelling and clearly heartfelt. There’s no longer any shame in her game, either; she is “professionally nosy,” and beckons readers to join her in viewing gossip with a more appreciative eye—perhaps luxuriating in “the joy of snooping” while they’re at it.
