The Funny Man Lib/E

The funny man is a middling comic in an unnamed city. By day he takes care of his infant son, by night he performs in small clubs, sandwiched between other aspiring comics. His wife waits tables to support the family. It doesn't sound like much, but they're happy, more or less. Until the day he comes up with it. His thing. His gimmick. And everything changes. He's a headliner, and the venues get bigger fast. Pretty soon it's Hollywood and a starring role in a blockbuster, all thanks to the gimmick. Which is: he performs with his fist in his mouth to the wrist. Jokes, impressions, commercials--all with his fist in his mouth to the wrist. The people want him--are crazy for him--but only with his fist in his mouth. But the funny man is tired of having his fist in his mouth. And so, the novel begins, his career's in tatters, his family's left him, and he's on trial for shooting an unarmed man six times. But for the second time in his life, against all odds, he's found love. This time with another celebrity, who may or may not be sending him coded messages, and may or may not be equally in love--or even know he exists. A coruscating satire of our culture of celebrity, The Funny Man documents one individual's slide from everyman to monster, even as it reveals the potential for grace--and mercy--in his life.

About the Author :
John Warner is the managing editor of McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His book My First Presidentiary (with Kevin Guilfoile) was a #1 Washington Post bestseller. John is also the editor of three volumes of material culled from the website Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, Mountain Man Dance Moves, The McSweeney's Book of Lists, and The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes. Warner teaches at Clemson University in South Carolina and is a consulting editor to the South Carolina Review. Mauro Hantman has been a resident actor at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, where he has appeared in over fifty productions since 1999. He's the artistic director of the Providence Improv Fest and a founding member of Improv Jones, an improv troupe formed in 1992.

Review :
"I'm not at all surprised that John Warner would invent the perfect Everyman for our age: a comic whose meteoric rise to fame is based on a stupid gimmick. Half first-person tell-all, half third-person takedown--a brilliant structure--The Funny Man is a whip-smart satire of celebrity culture. It is hysterical, and sad, and ultimately indicts us all. An excellent novel." -- "Jessica Francis Kane, author of The Report" "John Warner is an uncommonly funny and gifted writer who has managed to make the business of comedy actually funny, as opposed to the awful self-negating mess that it actually is. (I may only be speaking from personal experience on this last point.) The Funny Man will make you laugh and think and laugh some more." -- "Michael Ian Black, actor and comedian" "This debut novel from the editor of McSweeney's Internet Tendency is a surprisingly tame takedown of celebrity culture...[An] equally sickening and humorous portrait of the celebrity as a delusional man." -- "Publishers Weekly"