I'M DYING UP HERE Heartbreak and High Times in Standup Comedy's Golden Era WILLIAM KNOEDELSEDER

"Knoedelseder skillfully layers powerful dramatic details, and readers will shelve the book alongside those other key classics on comedy."
-Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"A revealing and entertaining look at the 1970s Los Angeles comedy scene and the labor dispute that ended its most glorious era."
-Shelf Awareness

"Fact-packed, highly readable history… peppered with plenty of portraits of struggling young comics, some destined for national fame, others headed to obscurity and, in a few cases, early death."
Booklist

"In I'm Dying Up Here, his candid look at standup comedy's 1970s golden age, ex–Los Angeles Times reporter William Knoedelseder says boomers raised on Milton Berle and Henny Youngman began seeking "their own countercultural heroes of humor." They found them—Letterman and Leno, Richard Lewis and Andy Kaufman—working for free at the showcase Comedy Store on Sunset Strip. But then came a laughter stoppage: the unpaid comedians went on strike in 1979, and a troubled comic named Steve Lubetkin killed himself. The funny business, we learn, is deadly serious."
-AARP The Magazine

"One of the most eye-opening and informative books ever written about standup comedy…One of the books of the year for any student of American television and pop culture…A little-known story has now been told very well in perfect context. And when you finish the book you may feel as if you finally understand every comedian you see on TV for the first time."
-Buffalo News

"A lively new book…Knoedelseder reminds us that comedy is a dicey calling."
-Daily Variety

PAPERBACK
ISBN 978-1586488936
Pub date: 07/27/10
Price: $14.95/18.95 Canada
6 1/8 x 9 1/4
304 pages
Humor, Performing Arts
Selling Territory: W
Pub history: 978-1586483173

E-BOOK
ISBN 978-0-78674-618-7
Pub date: 08/25/09
Price: $25.95/32.95 Canada

304 pages