The Current Climate

Grove Press continues the reissue of Bruce Jay Friedman's critically acclaimed fiction with The Current Climate by the comedic genius whose work Nelson Algren hailed as "more interesting than most of Malamud, Roth, and Bellow ...[and] more important." The Current Climate continues the hilarious misadventures of the screenwriter from Friedman's novel About Harry Towns. Harry is now twenty years older and living in New York, a frustrated playwright struggling to sell a TV series to make some quick cash-and paralyzed by the decision of whether or not he should get tickets to see Cats.

The titular subject of Friedman's 1972 About Harry Towns returns, older (57) but hardly wiser; in fact, Harry's honest bemusement at the workings of a world he no longer recognizes provides this uneven novel with its ripest comic moments. Despite a patient second wife and a new daughter, Harry finds that old habits die hard, especially when they include venturesome debauches with hookers and hoods in New York City. In Hollywood, Harry pitches screenplay ideas to studio executives whose healthy lifestyles and herculean work habits aren't part of the show biz world that he remembers. Even Harry's psychiatrist of 27 years seems suddenly out of joint, given to fainting spells and trips to the hairdresser. Though funny scene by scene, Friedman's portrait of Harry grows more scattershot and erratic as the novel progresses, detouring into the '50s for a witty depiction of a creative writing class, then returning to the present for a hasty resolution. Friedman's considerable gifts as a comic writer (he also wrote The Lonely Guy's Book of Life ) are never fully manifested here.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is a dreary, expensive sequel to About Harry Towns . In 1972, the Washington Post called Harry "unique, haunting, and completely memorable." When Harry reappears now at age 57, he is a second-rate screenwriter with an idea for a dog show. He likes to slip away from his comfortable suburban family for a night in the city: a little cocaine, a couple of porno flicks. He gets mugged in a hooker's bed. He almost wins an award. He's always working on a play. The highlight of his life is meeting Muhammad Ali at a urinal. The writing is ordinary, the language vulgar. Purchase only for readers who still remember Harry.
- Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport, N.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.