I know virtually nothing about Andy Kaufman — I know that Laurie Anderson worked as his assistant for a time, but that’s about it.
I bought it because Julie Hecht has only written four books, and the other three are absolutely amazing, and have reviews like this:
I.e., perfect books.
Kaufman is usually presented as a “comedian and performance artist”, but he seems to me more like somebody really into practical jokes and winding people up. And Hecht isn’t necessarily very interested in veracity, either, so I have absolutely no idea to what degree the entire book is “true”. In any case, it’s presented as being mostly written in the late 70s, as an article for Harper’s Magazine that spun out of control and was never published back then.
But after Kaufman’s resurgent fame (a decade after his death, with a big autobio film — The Man on the Moon), Hecht has polished it up and published it as a book. It describes Hecht trying to interview Kaufman (and succeeding in the end; the last half of the book is 90% transcription of the tapes she made, apparently), but we also get bits like this:
So Kaufman (and his sidekick Bob Zmuda) were sadistic assholes, basically? I mean, a complex and conflicted person (note: code for “sadistic asshole”).
Hecht obviously liked the guy, and Laurie Anderson did, too, so he can’t be all bad, but the description of his routines (like the one where he read The Great Gatsby until the audience started pelting him) really remind me of that 30 Rock bit where they had a documentary on about 70s transgressive humour? Combined with a portion of modern “it’s just a prank, bro”.
Sorry, sorry — I know there’s lots of people who love Kaufman’s stuff. I just don’t respond well to cringe humour.
Anyway. It’s a good book — it’s funny and kinda exciting.
Was this man a genius? (2001) by Julie Hecht (buy used, 3.72 on Goodreads)