The Other Great Depression - Hardcover

Lewis, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1891620932 ISBN 13: 9781891620935

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2000

Synopsis

The gifted comedian tells the story of his recovery from alcoholism through short takes on family, childhood, work, success, sex, love, drinking, therapy, eating disorders, comedy, creativity, and the human condition.

About this title

About the Author:

Appearing on GQ's list of the 20th Century's most influential humorists, Richard Lewis is often referred to as a comic's comic. Compared to Lenny Bruce for his freewheeling, on-the-edge, fearless style, Lewis is known to millions; be it from club performances, his sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, or his thousands of TV or radio appearances and HBO comedy specials. His scores of feature films and TV roles include star turns in the acclaimed indie feature Drunks, and Anything But Love, with Jamie Lee Curtis. The Brooklyn-born author was "lowered" in New Jersey and now lives alone in the Hollywood Hills surrounded by his obsessions.

From Publishers Weekly:

Fans of Lewis's bleak shtick are the natural audience for these searing, confessional riffs on the comic's angst, acute alcoholism and relentless sexual conquests, but it's hard to imagine that the uninitiated would enjoy the musings of "a bad-postured, guilt-ridden ball of confusion with a trace of paranoia, self-loathing and a little faith thrown in for some taste." Lewis attributes his misery to his parents: a sullen mother whose antipathy toward her son is not fully explored; his distant but admired father died young. The New Jersey boy found his escape route via jokes and isolation and, eventually, Ohio State University. Though he makes a sort of peace with his mother at the end of her life, the author reserves his moments of near-tenderness for members of comedy royalty: Buster Keaton's elegant widow, Eleanor, and Lenny Bruce's raucous mother, Sally Marr. (However, larger-than-life icon Jackie Gleason displays less-than-noble behavior to Lewis.) In his early 20s, Lewis found a mentor in the manager of a legendary Brooklyn comedy club. After the requisite struggles on the stand-up circuit, he made it big in many venues: HBO specials, a movie and a four-year stint in a TV series, Anything but Love. Bouts of debilitating drunkenness and the interventions of loyal friends led Lewis to the Hazelden clinic, though he dropped out in two days, opting to manage his own recovery. Though he now struggles to be monogamous with his current "lady," Lewis's mostly cynical rants about desperate women and PMS won't win him any new female fans. Agent, David Vigliano.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1891620932
• ISBN 13: 9781891620935
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288