Continue Laughing - Hardcover

Reiner, Carl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559722738 ISBN 13: 9781559722735

Publisher: Birch Lane Pr, 1995

Synopsis

The TV funny man reintroduces the protagonist of Enter Laughing, a Jewish clerk from the Bronx who joins a Shakespeare theater company down South, entertains the troops during World War II, and reaches the brink of comic stardom. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

From AudioFile:

Reiner narrates his novel with warmth and nostalgia. He's the natural guide as he shares his early life as an aspiring actor. His descriptions of his job with a touring Shakespearean repertoire company draw a delightful picture of simpler times in American theater. His humor is kind and self-deprecating, urging us to join in and laugh at his reminiscences. It would be hard for another narrator to project this. One might even think the program to be an extended skit, but it doesn't quite move fast enough, and Reiner is occasionally slowed by getting out the exact text. An older audience is likely to enjoy this program, but younger listeners will also get a glimpse of earlier times. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Publishers Weekly:

At its best, this wisecracking coming-of-age novel, a sequel to Enter Laughing, sparkles with the outrageous comedy and touching charm of the movies Reiner has directed (The Jerk; Where's Poppa? et al.). Cagey, raw, 19-year-old aspiring actor David Kokolovitz quits his upstate New York job as a sewing machine delivery boy, bids farewell to his Bronx girlfriend (whose middle-aged mother nearly seduces him) and joins a Shakespearean repertory company touring the Deep South of the early 1940s. An intrepid "Jew from the North" in "the land of the Gentiles. Catholics, blondes, and crucifixes everywhere," David falls in love with fellow trouper Mary Deare Prueitt, a kittenish Southern belle who's pregnant by a man she doesn't love. Posing as her husband, David helps Mary Deare obtain an illegal abortion and also meets her obnoxious father, an Alabama senator who admires Hitler. The first half of the novel is ribald, high-spirited, shot through with priceless moments. But when Reiner moves on to David's tour of duty as an Army private and comic actor cheering American troops from Oahu to Iwo Jima, the narrative turns plodding and-given the novel's apparent semi-autobiographical nature-self-indulgent.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Birch Lane Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1559722738
• ISBN 13: 9781559722735
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 257