The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy

by Kliph Nesteroff

Book Overview

Jokes change from generation to generation, but the experience of the comedian transcends the ages: the drive, jealousy, heartbreak, and triumph. From the Marx Brothers to Milton Berle to George Carlin to Eddie Murphy to Louis CK--comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century's worth of rebels and groundbreakers, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts, forgotten stars and workaday plodders in this essential history of American...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802125689
• ISBN13: 9780802125682
• Release Date: November 2016
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

If you like skipping from fact to fact, this is your book.

A frenetic book where one is barraged on each page with micro-facts, seemingly all related to comics and drug culture. Nothing uplifting about this book and questionable if some of the many comedians profiled in it were ever funny. I found myself disliking most of them as I read the book. I prefer to be inspired by people's lives, not demoralized.