What in the World?!: A Southern Woman's Guide to Laughing at Life's Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings

“My overriding ‘What in the world?’ amazement about where I am now is that all the hard times I faced in the past suddenly make perfect sense to me. God’s presence in everything I have gone through up to this point is so evident.”

Morgan’s faith is apparent throughout the text, and she highlights her perspective on The Role of Faith in Everyday Struggles. Looking back, it is clear to her that everything that happened to her, even the hard things, was a blessing that was part of God’s plan for her, and her exclamation of “What in the world?” connects to the title and becomes a recurring phrase that demonstrates her “amazement” at the unexpected turns of life. Her hardships prepared her for the beautiful life that she enjoys today, just as God intended, making her thankful for every one of these moments and difficulties.

“The store was like our family’s stage, where everyone in town came to hang out and visit with us and watch us work.”

In What in the World?!, the Fletchers’ store in the small town of Adams, Tennessee, is a symbol of Morgan’s early inclination toward performance and being the center of attention. As the only store in town, it was a central point in the community and put the Fletchers on display, and her reference to her “family’s stage” highlights that her love of performance was a family trait. Not only did it give Morgan a chance to “perform” for customers, but it reinforced the idea that she was special, different from others in Adams, and deserving of more attention.

“I thought I was special because my mama told me I was, every single day. ‘You are so funny, Leanne,’ Mom said. ‘Everyone loves listening to you talk big.’”

Morgan’s parents played a huge role in instilling her early confidence as well as continuing to be an inexhaustible source of love and support as she went through her more tumultuous years. Lucille believed completely in her daughter’s gifts and helped to instill Morgan’s own certainty that she was meant for great things.

“In the South, girls of my generation were expected to be pretty to find a good husband. Being funny and smart was good too, just as long as it didn’t scare off a man.”

This passage describes the cultural expectations for women in the South when Morgan was growing up, continuing the narrative’s exploration of the theme of subverting gender roles in southern culture. Because being pretty was the most important thing for girls, education for young women wasn’t considered important, and Morgan didn’t work hard in school because she was sure that being cute and fun would get her everywhere she needed to go in life. She highlights how her other qualities—“funny and smart”—weren’t held in as high regard.

“Lucille was the brains behind our family business, but she embraced the southern custom of enjoying prettiness. It didn’t mean she was shallow. She wanted us to be educated and go to college, but being attractive was good too. ‘Things are just easier for pretty people,’ she said. Good looks earned you compliments and boosted your self-esteem, and, one day, they would land you a husband with health insurance.”

Here, Morgan describes how her mother both challenged and embraced traditional gender roles and expectations for Southern women. Lucille was beautiful, intelligent, and hard-working, and encouraged her daughters to be the same so that life would be “easier.” She still considered physical appearance to be a vital part of a woman’s success, but not the only thing that was important.

“I tried to teach my children that self-worth can be found in their relationship with God. ‘It doesn’t matter what you have, what you look like, or what you’ve done. You’re a child of God. When you have self-doubt, focus on that,’ I told them.”

Much of Morgan’s journey of self-discovery and establishing her own sense of identity has to do with disconnecting her self-worth from her physical appearance. Especially as she ages and her looks begin to change, Morgan has to anchor her sense of self-worth to something less ephemeral, like her relationship with God, highlighting the theme of the role of faith in everyday struggles through her explanation of her own approach.

“Being myself is what made things happen for me in my career later on. This is who I am. You either like it or you don’t. And it’s okay if you don’t! (But I hope you do.)”

Morgan’s memoir is, among other things, an exploration of her identity. She spent years learning to embrace and express her true self. Even in the face of hardships and difficulties, she chose to live with authenticity and never let people or circumstances change her. Morgan credits her eventual success to this commitment to being herself, although her parenthetical aside illustrates how she still, in the end, wants to be liked.

“Some of my professors mocked me too. One English teacher, a little old woman from up north, marked my papers with big red circles and wrote comments like ‘This is not part of the English language’ and ‘Your grammar is atrocious.’”

Morgan grew up relatively sheltered in small-town Adams. When she arrived at the University of Tennessee, Morgan discovered certain cultural and class divides she hadn’t been aware of before. It had never occurred to her that she was using language incorrectly, for example, and it surprised her that people thought themselves superior to her just because she came from a rural area, demonstrating how this move became a major perspective shift for her.

“If I took that job, my life wouldn’t go anywhere. In five years, I’d still be standing on my feet for eight hours in a little department store. My world would shrink to five square feet—the amount of space behind that counter. I knew in my heart I’d never be happy that way. The boys and I were having a ball being broke together, but they were going to finish their degrees soon. And then what would happen to me?”

This passage describes the moment that Morgan knew she had to go back to school and finish her degree. Even though she was enjoying life with her roommates, she could see how their situation was temporary; once they graduated, they would move on to other lives, while she still had no sense of direction or clear path forward. Being offered a promotion at the makeup counter with a “pitiful” raise made Morgan realize she had to do more with her life.

“I joked that it was like living in Deliverance. Adams was rural, but Nashville was nearby. Bean Station was rural, surrounded by more rural. My neighbors had never been to a big city. I’m not saying I was better than them or anyone. But I wasn’t raised there, and I felt different from them. That was isolating. I need people. I need to chat.”

Here, Morgan describes her early days in Bean Station, including the isolation and loneliness she felt. Her experience illustrates the different levels of rural life that exist in the United States. Even though Morgan grew up in a small town, she wasn’t prepared for the intense remoteness of Bean Station. Nevertheless, she never saw this difference as superiority, unlike what she experienced with people from the city that she encountered at college.

“The key was to read her messages out loud so they made sense. I saw some of them, and they were like looking at the original Cracker Barrel menu, spelling ‘house’ like ‘howz’ or writing ‘n’ for ‘and.’ I don’t know what grade she got to in school, but she was sharp and a hard worker. She could have done anything, but she didn’t have the chance.”

This passage describes Pearl, one of Chuck’s employees at his mobile home refurbishing company. Chuck hired her despite her lack of education and taught her to read and write phonetically. Her story illustrates Chuck’s compassion and commitment to using his status as a business owner to give opportunities to those in need, developing Chuck’s character beyond his traditional gender role and offering insight into Morgan’s love for her husband. It also highlights the plight of many intelligent and hardworking individuals who are stigmatized and ignored solely due to their circumstances.

“He’d roll his eyes, telling me without words that he’d rather not listen to me. That didn’t feel good. All I wanted was a little conversation. Some connection. Just half a dozen words of affirmation from him, and I would feel loved.”

Chuck and Morgan are different in many ways, including their communication styles and love languages. Especially isolated in Bean Station, the extroverted Morgan needed people to talk to and share her thoughts and feelings with, but the introverted Chuck came home tired and socially drained from work. Morgan was often hurt by Chuck’s refusal to chat, which she interpreted as a lack of interest in her.

“But do you see now why I had to become a comedian? I had to do something to cope with this man.”

One of the key themes in What in the World?! is how Morgan uses humor to cope with difficult situations and works toward Building Resilience Through Humor. Here, she jokes about needing to become a comedian to deal with her husband. While her humor is genuine, it also belies the real frustrations and difficulties she experiences in her marriage.

“As telling stories became my party schtick, my sales took off. The events were less about selling merchandise and more about a bunch of moms having a good time at a hilarious group therapy session. I felt like I was putting on a show. ‘You can either see me in Las Vegas later or have a party with me now,’ I said at the end of my presentation.”

Selling jewelry at parties is the first time that Morgan realizes she can use her gift for entertaining and making people laugh to generate an income, marking a return to her early desire to perform. It also became a way for her to connect with others and share her experience, satisfying her need for human interaction and bringing people together. Her comment at the end of the presentation sounds like the closing of a comedy set, foreshadowing her eventual career.

“That was another God moment. Dennis, a professional, was telling me, a mama with two babies in the foothills of the Appalachians, that I could be a professional comedian too.”

Morgan describes a series of “God moments” throughout the text, moments when she knew that God was telling her she was moving in the right direction. Some of them are more ambiguous, such as a guest at one of the jewelry parties laughing so hard she wet herself, while others are more direct, like a professional comedian telling her she has a gift for comedy. To Morgan, moments like these are evidence of God’s presence in her life and proof that she is moving forward in accordance with God’s plan for her.

“Once again, Chuck never asked for my opinion. He thought not telling me about important stuff made him a good husband and provider. In reality, it made me a furious wife. Being married to Chuck was like being in a dark room and not being able to find the doorknob.

I knew that Chuck Morgan could make a living off a flat rock. His own father told me before we got married, ‘You better watch Chuck. He’ll bury money in the backyard like a squirrel.’ I had no problem with that. But his squirreling away information felt like he didn’t respect or trust me. I’d put up with a lot from him. The moves…His grabbing my breasts day and night…I deserved more than this.”

This passage describes some of Morgan’s marital struggles based on Chuck’s strict adherence to traditional gender roles, continuing the memoir’s exploration of subverting gender roles in southern culture. Chuck takes his role as a provider for his family seriously, and Morgan appreciates his dedication to hard work and making sure she and their children are taken care of. Chuck sometimes takes his patriarchal role too far, shutting Morgan out of major decisions regarding their family, making her feel unvalued and unimportant, but his father’s comment underscores the fact that this characteristic is innate, not directed at Morgan specifically.

“Making people laugh made me feel like I was contributing to the greater good. It was also just plain fun. I loved getting a laugh and the bulletproof feeling of confidence it brought on. Not only that, but stand-up gave me something to look forward to. It gave me an identity that was all mine, apart from being Chuck’s wife or my babies’ mama.”

Morgan found that comedy could be more than just a job; it became a way for her to improve others’ lives by spreading joy. It also became a way for her to establish her own sense of identity, independent of, yet still in concordance with, her public expression of identity as a wife and mother. Her comment, “It was also just plain fun,” however, demonstrates how, above all, Morgan loves the joy of comedy.

“It might sound weird that I was quaking in my kitten heels while also being certain I’d kill. But I’m a woman. I can feel two different, even contradictory, emotions at the same time—and they’re both real.”

Much of What in the World?! deals with the multiplicity of identity and the validity of simultaneously inhabiting various identities and realities. Being a wife and mother, for example, doesn’t mean that Morgan also can’t be a comedian. As she points out, individuals can feel and experience multiple things at the same time without invalidating their other experiences.

“Female comedians talk all the time about how you can’t be funny and pretty, and I went through a period where I felt that way.”

Although female comedians have made great strides in recent decades, stand-up comedy remains a difficult field for women, especially mothers. Morgan often felt like she had to downplay her looks so that her comedy would be taken seriously, and her comment here points out that she is, by far, not the only woman who has felt this way, placing herself on a longer continuum of female comedians.

“But we don’t always realize in the moment how not getting what we want, when we want it, can be better in the end for us and the people we love. But now I know the wisdom and grace of unanswered prayers.”

As Morgan looks back on her life, she can see how certain things that she saw as hardships or disappointments in the moment were actually God’s way of protecting her and her family. There were certain moments where her career could have taken off but didn’t. The deferment of her success meant that Morgan could focus all her attention on her family and be there for her children throughout their childhood and adolescence.

“But it never would have happened if I hadn’t taken the most important step of all: investing in myself. It’s never too late to take it. I’m living proof of that. Who knows what might happen to you, darling reader, if you give yourself the chance?”

In this passage, Morgan uses direct address, speaking to the reader, offering herself as proof of the possibility of success even later in life. While Morgan credits God with her success, she also doesn’t discount her own hard work and dedication. While God might have had a plan for her, it wouldn’t have come to fruition without her decades of continued effort and the bravery to invest in and advocate for herself.

“Chuck is a man who likes to be in control of himself and the situation. So when I started to get a little famous at fifty-five, my poor husband was completely thrown sideways.”

This passage describes the changes to Chuck and Morgan’s marriage after her career in comedy began to take off. Suddenly, Chuck was no longer the sole provider and breadwinner, which shifted the power dynamic in their relationship and made Chuck feel inadequate and insecure. She rightfully points to this as a control issue, but her tone offers both humor and sympathy, avoiding painting Chuck as an antagonist.

“And if no one ever buys another ticket to my shows again, I’ll still have a full life because of my family.”

Morgan’s fame didn’t change her sense of priorities. For decades, her family was her sole focus, and that priority doesn’t change once she becomes famous. The things that make life worth living are not wealth and notoriety but love and connection with those closest to you.