The Funny Man (ePub)

“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.) This book will make you laugh and think and laugh some more.”—Michael Ian Black

“John Warner's The Funny Man is a funny novel about a funny man who sticks his whole hand in his mouth in a funny way. But it's much more than that—a wise, rueful, surprisingly tender book about what happens when we get what we want, and then what happens when we keep on wanting things. A very American novel, in other words, a novel that reminds me of Walker Percy's and Saul Bellow's very American novels. I can think of no higher praise for a novel, and The Funny Man deserves it.”—Brock Clarke, author of Exley and An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

"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

“What people will do for fame never looked so bad, or conceivable. John Warner tips celebrity culture a few degrees toward the absurd, and out falls a human, dying from a joke. The Funny Man shows us what blooms in the shadows of the paparazzi’s flashbulbs—nothing pretty, but true and damn amusing.”—Rosecrans Baldwin, author of You Lost Me There

"America's favorite comedian is on trial for manslaughter, and 'the funny man''s lawyer, Barry, has a unique defense: not guilty by way of celebrity.... [An] equally