Lenny Bruce Is Dead: A Novel

by Jonathan Goldstein

Overview

This startlingly original debut from This American Life contributor Jonathan Goldstein is, according to a Vice Magazine reviewer, "the cleanest dirty book I've ever read." It's a snapshot of the mind of Josh, a rather confused young man who must cope with his father's listlessness and his own overwhelming lust, not to mention the arrival of the Moschiach, inventor of the infamous Love Lotion.



Lenny Bruce Is Dead walks a tightrope between the searingly funny and the poignant. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll long for some Love Lotion of your own. And you won't forget Josh–ineptitude, scatological neuroses, urban angst, self–deprecating humor and all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781582433479
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	02/21/2006
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.02(w) x 7.14(h) x 0.46(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Goldstein is an American-Canadian author, humorist and radio producer. Goldstein has worked on radio programs and podcasts such as Heavyweight, This American Life, and WireTap.

Editorial Reviews

"The cleanest dirty book I have ever read. Goldstein is a goddamn poet."

VICE Magazine

Goldstein's woeful, funny debut novel is a series of aphorism-capped vignettes, paced at the rate of approximately one scene per paragraph. As these snapshots flash past, protagonist Josh ages rapidly from child to onanistic teen to depressive adult, mourning the death of his mother and the loss of a series of vividly described girlfriends along the way. Throughout, descriptions of Josh's suburban-anytown Jewish upbringing and job at local fast-food franchise Burger Zoo, while peppered with scatological and Portnoy's Complaint-esque sordidly sexual details, often achieve a level of nuance that's poetic and almost profound. In the latter third of the book, Josh's preoccupation with a Hasidic neighbor and the "Rebbe's Kosher-style Love Lotion" that he begins to experiment with grow repetitive and confusing. But "This American Life" contributing editor Goldstein has a knack for imagery ("He was crying on the floor, pulling toilet paper off the spool with both hands like he was climbing a rope") and ear for hyper-realistic dialogue, making him a writer to watch. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

It's helpful that the title page characterizes this debut volume by NPR and magazine writer Goldstein as "(A Novel)," for otherwise the reader might be even more perplexed by the assortment of bite-sized vignettes, observations and non-sequiturs that challenges categorization. Even the agile mind of the late Lenny Bruce (who receives the briefest of name checks here) would have difficulty determining what to make of this. The elliptical narrative was first published in 2001 in Canada, where the Brooklyn-born author lives. The anti-plot features a nondescript protagonist named Josh who works at a fast-food dive called Burger Zoo. Josh's father is Chick. Josh's mother is Frieda. Frieda is sick. Or dying. Or dead. Josh's narrative makes such leaps of chronology and consciousness that just when the reader has determined that Frieda has died, she returns to life. Josh has a best friend named Kaliotzakis. Josh also has a series of girlfriends, though except for the changes of names as they come and go from these pages, it's difficult to distinguish them. Josh has a rabbi with messianic aspirations who sells something called Kosher-style Love Lotion. The Love Lotion appears to be more repugnant than seductive. Sex is only one of the bodily functions that obsesses Josh. Maybe Josh has no inner life or maybe all he has is an inner life. Maybe all of this meandering is a meditation on consciousness, or connectedness, or time as it operates within the Mobius strip of the mind. Maybe it's designed to subvert every expectation of narrative progression and character development, as if those who perceive life and art in such linear fashion haven't recognized that the illusion of linearity is itself atrick of the mind. On occasion, Josh disappears, replaced by the first-person narration of "I." Whether or not Josh is "I" doesn't seem to mean more than anything else within this random, seemingly arbitrary assemblage of paragraphs. Has the world gone mad? Has Josh? Or has Goldstein?

Kirkus Reviews