An "irresistible" collection of short fiction by an author who "has been likened to everyone from J. D. Salinger to Woody Allen" ( The New York Times Book Review).Hailed by Newsweek as "a bona fide literary event," The Collected Short Fiction of Bruce Jay Friedman brings together dozens of the New York Times–bestselling author's greatest stories, which originally appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, and other ma...

"Like a Twilight zone with Charlie Chaplin"Mario PuzoWriter, screenwriter, playwright, editor, actor, teacher: Bruce Jay Friedman has done it all, charming the glitziest industries of American golden-age culture for more than half a century. Lucky Bruce is his long-awaited memoir, and it's everything we'd expect and more: here is Friedman at his best, waltzing from Madison Avenue to Hollywood and back again, and reilluminating with brilliant clarity the dazzle of post-war...

One day in early summer it seemed, miraculously, that Stern would not have to sell his house and move away. Some small blossoms had appeared on one of the black and mottled trees of what Stern called his Cancer Garden, and there was talk of a child in the neighborhood for his son, a lonely boy who sat each day in the center of Stern's lawn and sucked on blankets. Stern had found a swift new shortcut across the estate which cut his walking time down ten minutes to and from the train, and th...

Oscar-nominated screenwriter and accomplished playwright Bruce Jay Friedman is back with a compilation of some of his selected works. With sharp, black comedy and a punch of wit, his plays have delighted audiences since the 1960s and earned him rave reviews from The New York Times and The New Yorker. From God as a bathhouse steam room attendant, to the Spanish Armada that goes horribly right, 3.1 Plays captures the surreal with a flair that is uncompromised by Friedmans ability to write real ...

A parade of unforgettable characters emerge from the steam in this hilarious, supernatural bathhouse. There is Tandy, fresh from teaching art appreciation at the Police Academy; Meredith, whose last memory is buying a micro-miniskirt; Biberman, a karate silver-belt who masquerades as a paraplegic; and the mysterious Puerto Rican janitor given to omniscient musings and manipulating the fate of all mankind.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Jason Alexander, Edward ...

A few years ago, Christopher Buckley wrote of Bruce Jay Friedman in the New York Times Book Review that he "has been likened to everyone from J. D. Salinger to Woody Allen," but that "he is: Bruce Jay Friedman, sui generis, and no mean thing. No further comparisons are necessary." We are happy to report that he remains the same Bruce Jay Friedman in his unique, unblinking, and slightly tilted essays—collected here for the first time—in Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos....

"Stern" follows the story of Irving Stern, a Jewish man living in New York City who finds himself disillusioned with his life and career. As an advertising executive, Stern is successful but deeply unhappy, feeling trapped in a world of superficiality and materialism.The novel explores Stern's existential crisis as he grapples with questions of identity, purpose, and authenticity. Feeling disconnected from his Jewish heritage and dissatisfied with his marriage and career, Stern embarks on ...

Far From the City of Class, and Other Stories arrives like a sucker punch from the margins of mid-century American life, a debut collection that announced Bruce Jay Friedman as one of the sharpest, most darkly comic voices of his generation. Published in 1963, these stories carve out territory that feels simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, populated by men who are adrift in a world that seems to have changed the rules without telling them. Friedman's characters stumble through subu...

First published in 1962, Bruce Jay Friedman's acclaimed first fiction novel, Stern, tells the story of a young Jewish man who relocates his family from the city to the suburbs, where they are besieged by voracious caterpillars and a bigotry that ranges from the genteel snub to outright confrontation."An iridescent tour de force...Mr. Friedman's style is pure delight-supple, carnal, humorous and at times slightly surrealistic."—The New York Times Book Review"What makes Friedma...

Three Balconies brings together 17 new stories by the celebrated humorist, vintage Friedman all. In sumptuously simple language, the language of the street, the bar, the store, the office, Friedman gives us a collection of moral fables that explores friendship and faith and failure unswervingly, yet with compassion and, as always, tremendous humour.

“An entertaining rant…The only thing missing is the sound of a drumroll and cymbals to feel as though one is sitting in a nightclub watching a live comedy marathon…A raucous, biting look at life.”—Kirkus Reviews“Nobody, but nobody, can hate like Joan Rivers. It is a gift. It is also shocking, the things she makes us laugh at…Joan Rivers is extraordinary, but she's not for the easily offended—or for anyone who gets offended at all.”—People

Rita Hayworth dancing by candlelight; Elizabeth Taylor tenderly wrapping him in her Pashmina scarf; streaking for Sir Laurence Olivier in a drafty English castle; terrifying a dozing Jackie Onassis; carrying an unconscious Montgomery Clift to safety on a dark New York street...Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella's myriad encounters with some of the past century's most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresi...