The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of An American Icon - Hardcover

Ronald K. L. Collins; David M. Skover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1570719861 ISBN 13: 9781570719868

Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc, 2002

Synopsis

Chronicles the courtroom battles Lenny Bruce engaged in in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where he was arrested for his provocative and controversial performances critiquing the hypocrisies of American society.

About this title

About the Author

Ronald K.L. Collins graduated from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and was a judicial fellow in the United States Supreme Court. He is currently the First Amendment scholar-in-residence at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Virginia. He has written numerous scholarly articles in the Harvard, Stanford and Michigan Law Reviews, and more than 150 newspaper op-ed pieces. He edited The Death of Contract and Constitutional Government in America.

David M. Skover graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. He now teaches as a law professor at Seattle University Law School. Skover has written numerous scholarly articles in the Harvard, Stanford and Michigan Law Reviews, and coauthored (with Pierre Schlag) Tactics of Legal Reasoning.

Collins and Skover were the founding coeditors of Books-on-Law, a monthly online journal dedicated to book reviews and have written for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Nation. Their first book together was The Death of Discourse.

Nat Hentoff writes weekly articles for The Village Voice and has written numerous articles, essays and books about politics, human rights and jazz. He has received numerous awards, including the National Press Foundation Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism and the American Bar Association Certificate of Merit for Coverage of the Criminal Justice System.

Reviews

The shelf is full of books about "outlaw social critic" Lenny Bruce (1925-1966). But now comes a different approach, as two legal scholars provide an in-depth survey of "comedy on trial"-the five years of censorship, arrests, obscenity trials, convictions and appeals as prosecutors sought to bust Bruce for "word crimes." Skover and Collins (coauthors of The Death of Discourse) meticulously document both litigation and the literary scene of the 1960s, crosscutting between clubs and courtrooms to show how Bruce's career crumbled in a nightmarish fashion as he broke taboos and struggled for free speech in the years before his death from a morphine overdose. Looking for a lawyer in 1964, Bruce requested, "Get me somebody who swings with the First Amendment," and that year noted performers and writers (such as William Styron, John Updike, James Baldwin) signed a petition to support Bruce, while others (Jules Feiffer, Jason Epstein, even the "prim and proper" Dorothy Kilgallen) served as defense witnesses. Granted access to Bruce's papers, Collins and Skover have done exhaustive research, also interviewing Bruce's lawyers, club owners, cohorts and comic talents, including Orson Bean, George Carlin, Margaret Cho and Paul Krassner. The voice of Bruce springs to life with his memorable comedy routines heard on the accompanying CD, narrated by Nat Hentoff and also featuring interviews with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Hugh Hefner and others who reflect on Bruce's legacy. Generating a gamut of emotions, the entire package is an important documentation of a revolution in American culture. B&w photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Collins and Skover's biography of groundbreaking comedian Lenny Bruce comes with a compact disc of snippets from Bruce's routines and vintage interviews, and hearing Bruce's delivery aids appreciation of his subject matter and reveals unexpected commonalities with, say, Woody Allen. Still, as nice as the CD is, the book is indispensable. Its 80-plus pages of appendixes, notes, and bibliography constitute a treasure trove of reference information, including even a list of "Attorneys, Judges, and Club Owners" who intruded on Bruce's life. A handy "Free Speech Chronology" offers a time line of significant dates in Bruce's ongoing contretemps with the thought police, from October 13, 1925, when Bruce was born as Alfred Schneider, to January 7, 1970, when an appeals court affirmed the verdict in a free-speech case in which a co-defendant of Bruce's was involved (Bruce's own appeal was never, it says, "perfected"). With his countercultural appeal and impeccable antiestablishment credentials, Bruce seems perennially interesting, which makes this book-CD package a mandatory acquisition for most libraries. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

One of the most incendiary entertainers in American stand-up comedy, Lenny Bruce was never one to shy away from controversy or a legal fight. Written by a First Amendment scholar and law professor, this is the story of the series of obscenity cases that Bruce had leveled against him and how they played out. Many details from the trials are included here, making the book a literal walking tour of his time in court. An outstanding feature is the accompanying audio CD, the contents of which are all keyed to passages in the book. Narrated by Nat Hentoff and containing performances by Bruce and interviews with other entertainment notables, including George Carlin, the CD gives the text another dimension and allows for a truly different reading experience. The book is best read in tandem with Bruce's How To Talk Dirty and Influence People: An Autobiography and William Karl Thomas's Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet. A fine retelling of Bruce's career as well as one of the only books in print to detail his free-speech legal troubles, Trials is recommended for all media and law libraries. David M. Lisa, Wayne P.L., NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1570719861
• ISBN 13: 9781570719868
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 562