Customer Reviews

Funnymen: A Novel

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I picked up this book because of the title and it really turned out to be full of funnymen (and women). I don't remember the last time a book made me laugh out loud the way this one did. Also, this book is set up in a really interesting way. Instead of long descriptions about this or that like in other novels, the entire story is only told by many many speaker/characters. They each have very distinctive ways of speaking, so after a while you can really imagine them speaking. And many of them are comedians, so what they say is really funny. This set up really keeps the action rolling. The effect is like watching a very funny episode of Behind the Music or something. I thought this was a really unique and brilliant way to set up a book.

Also, Funnymen is set during the classic era of American entertainment: the big band and vaudeville scene on down to the cocktail lounge scene and the Rat Pack. I liked this aspect the best. Lots of the characters are modeled after the classic stars of that time that everyone now treats like saints (like Sinatra and Dean Martin) but you figure were always living fast and loose. In this book, you get to go behind the scenes and see the wild times they had (well, sort of, since this is a work of fiction) and it's really really funny. In all, this book was fun, lighthearted and very entertaining to read. I really enjoyed it and recommend it.

"They were incorrigible, they were unprofessional, they were spiteful and childish and had not one jot of class," says one character about the funny men of the title. No kidding. The comedy duo of Fountain and Bliss (Vic Fountain and Ziggy Bliss) have people rolling in the aisles from the forties through the fifties -people actually have heart attacks from laughing so hard! They are secretly sent to Los Alamos to give the scientists some yucks before testing the A-bomb! But off-stage they are disgusting and are surrounded by people who are pretty much the same. So why is "Funnymen" so entertaining?

Author Ted Heller uses an oral history format to tell the tale of this famous team, which works. Their career is reported by a variety of pals from the old neighborhood, fellow Catskills comics, thugs, tarts, agents, spouses, and more. Nobody likes these guys, but they all ride on their coattails. And what a ride it is. When Vic Fountain and Ziggy Bliss catch sight of each other for the first time, they recognize fellow travelers. Vic may be a handsome crooner and Ziggy an brillo-haired zany comic, but they immediately see in each other someone missing that spark of empathy that makes a human being. On stage, they perform with an uncanny rapport. Off stage, they barely speak.

Fountain and Bliss are supposedly based on Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in what some consider to be the golden age of comedy. Heller catches the whole rude, crude crowd, who are often funny in ways they'd never guess. But do not be fooled into thinking that "Funnymen" is just a raunchy snoop backstage in the age of cocktail lounges, Vegas shows, and tinselly Rat Pack glamour. The guys get their comeuppance in ways that are both just and very, very sad.

I'm overwhelmed with Ted Heller's achievement in this book. I can't remember ever reading another fictionalized oral history and the idea is such a great one! If you've ever read any showbiz biographies, especially from the Golden Age of Hollywood, you will love this book. True, there are plenty of similarities to the Dean & Jerry team, but there are tons of in-jokes stolen from the lives of Milton Berle, Groucho Marx, and other luminaries. It really did remind me of Christopher Guest's ...documentary movies; the details are believable, but then this slight sense of----insanity slips in. The famous female star whose food [indulging] veers dangerously close to cannibalism...oh, I don't want to spoil it. Just read this book if you're into showbiz stories. You will NOT regret it.

After reading the hilarious excerpt of this book in GQ, I was able to get an advance copy from a friend who works at a movie studio here in LA. I was blown away by Heller's take on this behind-the-scenes story of a bizarre and neurotic -- though wildly successful -- comedy team. There are belly laughs on every page, and in the end, the story also shows surprising heart and depth. I was a huge fan of Heller's first novel, "Slab Rat", which skewered the magazine industry, but I really think he outdid himself with this one. Can't wait to see what world he takes one next. Ambitious and brilliant, and absolutely a must read.

Funnymen was one of the best books I've read in a long time. I actually didn't even realize it was based loosely on Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, but I am 24, and barely even know who they are! I don't know if this made the book better or worse for me, but I loved it. I didn't live during that time, or know many of the characters that were referenced, but it didn't matter. The storytelling is amazing, I never wanted it to end. Ted Heller is just amazing for having written this. I thought many times as I read how much work must have gone into it, because it SHOWS. Every detail is wonderful and entertaining and funny and sad.

As much as I loved the story, the reader is definitely made to hate Ziggy & Vic on some level as it goes on, because they are such coldhearted, selfish characters. That's why I was so suprised at how sad I felt at the book's end, when it portrayed what happened to them as they aged. It really touched me, and you pretty much wanted to forgive them for all of the horrible things they had done. I was haunted by it for days. I felt a sense of nostalgia for their youth, as if it was my own life that had passed, and I found myself flipping through the book's earlier passages just so I could relive some of the best times they had had.

Bottom line: extremely inventive storytelling rich with eccentric and distinct characters whose voices you can really hear. A very satisfying, funny and clever book from beginning to end. Ted Heller, I thank you.

If you like buddy comedies and Martin & Lewis, "Funnymen" will surely please you. The fictional story of an accidental comedy team, Heller's novel is filled with enough bad jokes, untalented singers, and Borscht Belt memories to keep you in stitches. The challenges of the intense relationship between Fountain and Bliss are well-detailed, and very engaging.

It's been a few years since I first read Funnymen by Ted Heller (it was published in 2002). I read so many books, and my memory is shot anyway, so it was time to give it another go (Heller is also the author of one of my all-time favorite comic novels, Slab Rat.)

The "funnymen" of the novel are the fictional comedy duo of Fountain & Bliss, loosely based on the legendary team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The narrative is unique, set up documentary style, as if Heller himself had interviewed all the major and minor characters of the Fountain & Bliss world. All of these characters (and boy are they characters!) tell of the meeting, union, and rise of the loony comedian (Bliss) and the girl-chasing crooner (Fountain), from the Catskills in the 1940s, to Hollywood of the 1960s, and beyond--past their eventual breakup, and into old age. Each character tells his/her version of events in a unique, identifiable voice, which I know (as a writer) is a hard trick to pull off.

The storytelling in Funnymen is engaging, spot-on, satisfying, exhausting, and more importantly--funny. When the laughs come (and there are plenty of them), it's because you as the reader know the characters so intimately, that you get the joke on every level, as if you are laughing at a long-time friend or family member.

So that's two great novels now from Mr. Heller, but the question is: When is the next one? It's been six long years since Funnymen was published. Ted, if you're out there, help me out. I need some more Heller. I'll be a first reader for you if you need one.

Ted Heller, you astonish me. This book could not be better than it is. The words genius and brilliant--but not in an anglo, pseudo overstated way--apply. Funnymen is a huge accomplishment. Say nothing of the avalanche of research, the hundreds of moving parts to keep track of, the 543,993 perfect metaphors, this is a supreme character analysis that is at once slyly (and broadly) hilarious, haunting, disturbing, insightful. Ted puts other writers to shuddering shame. I finished it at 2 a.m., and lay in bed (shuddering with shame), thinking about the lives of his characters and crying until 4 a.m. I am blind with exhaustion right now as I type this review. For the record, I loved Sally, Danny, Ernie and Snuffy, "What a kidney is for," Anchors Oy Vey, eyes as deadly weapons, silverware jumping into handbags. Awe, I'm telling you.

Really enjoyed this very humorous book. Lots of laughs!! A very different and original approach. I'd like to take the author to dinner!!

When Ziggy Blissman, a disastrous mix of sexual and social dysfunction, teams ups with Vic Fountain, (Formerly Fontana) who sings because he is trying to find the easiest life possible, entertainment history is made (up).Filled with ridiculous anecdotes from "friends and colleagues" of the great comedy duo, Fountain and Bliss, Ted Heller recreates the time when the nightclubs ruled. Martin and Lewis are the obvious models for Heller's fictional oral history, but his characters and their lives are different enough that it would be hard to separate any truths from this fiction. Heller does a great job of keeping all the characters consistent and each speaks with an individual voice that holds up to the conceit of this oral history quite well. The stories are so well conveyed by his characters; they have the sound of truth to them even when those stories are beyond belief. The end does become more than a little maudlin, but until that point this book is an outrageous farce.