Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film

The instant New York Times bestseller from author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt, a “heartfelt and hilarious” (USA TODAY) memoir for film lovers about coming of age as a performer in the 1990s Los Angeles comedy scene while obsessively watching classic and cult films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema. “[Oswalt has] a set of synapses like a pinball machine and a prose style to match” (The New York Times).

Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakable addiction. It wasn’t drugs, alcohol, or sex: it was film. After moving to Los Angeles, Oswalt became a huge cinephile (or as he calls it, a sprocket fiend), absorbing classics, cult hits, and new releases at the famous New Beverly Cinema. Silver screen celluloid became Patton’s life schoolbook, informing his notion of acting, writing, comedy, and relationships.

Set in the nascent days of Los Angeles’s alternative comedy scene, Silver Screen Fiend chronicles Oswalt’s journey from fledgling stand-up comedian to self-assured sitcom actor, with the colorful New Beverly collective and a cast of now-notable young comedians supporting him all along the way. “Clever and readable...Oswalt’s encyclopedic knowledge and frothing enthusiasm for films (from sleek noir classics, to gory B movies, to cliché-riddled independents, to big empty blockbusters) is relentlessly present, whirring in the background like a projector” (The Boston Globe). More than a memoir, this is “a love song to the silver screen” (Paste Magazine).

Patton Oswalt is a comedian, actor, writer, and the New York Times bestselling author of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland and Silver Screen Fiend. His acclaimed stand-up career includes the Emmy and Grammy Award–winning Talking for Clapping, as well as the Grammy-nominated specials and albums Annihilation, I Love Everything, and We All Scream. As an actor and voice performer, he is known for The King of Queens, Parks and Recreation, A.P. Bio, Big Fan, Young Adult, and for voicing Remy in Pixar’s Ratatouille. He lives in Los Angeles.