The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great American Literary Form [Paperback]

Eddie Tafoya (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2009

Despite the claim of many a Borscht Belt comic that he is a practitioner of "the world's second-oldest professsion," stand-up comedy is a young and distinctly American literary form. It was not until the last decades of the nineteenth century when, enabled by unprecedented prosperity and the right to free expression, that monologists began appearing in American vaudeville halls. Yet even though it has since become an entertainment industry mainstay, stand-up comedy has received precious little scholarly attention. The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great American Literary Form looks at the theory of stand-up comedy, its literary dimensions, and its distinctly American qualities as it provides a detailed history of the forces that shaped it. The study concludes with a look at the works of specific comedians such as Steven Wright, whose three decades of performances comprise a single picaresque tale, and Richard Pryor, whose 1982 masterpiece Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip serves as modern America's answer to Dante Aligheri's epic poem, Inferno. The result is one of the first serious treatments of stand-up comedy as a literary form.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Brown Walker Press (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599424959
• ISBN-13: 978-1599424958
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born, raised,
traumatized, indoctrinated, oppressed, and arrested
while scurrying like a beetle through the dust,
streetgrime, alleyways, lavender dawns, and
mercury-vapor hazes of Albuquerque's Old Town,
Downtown, and Uptown; educated, bewildered, beat-up,
picked on, lied to, suspended, led astray, and
introduced to the rigors of impotent rage via the
Archdiocese of Santa Fe's parochial schools; entered
the University of New Mexico as an art major, asked to
leave while a psych major; found myself at age 21
broke, alienated, ostracized, psychotic, neurotic --
deep in the throes of the post-pubescent blues -- and
sweeping up cigarette butts in a posh Colorado resort
to earn my keep.
A fit of despair. No television. My sister's portable
8-track player finally unfixable. Signed up for five
free books from the Literary Guild. Chose the
Hemingway set -- three books count as one selection.
Missed the stuff about the missing equipment at the
core of The Sun Also Rises. Fell in love, anyway, with
the sparse and textural brilliance of Hemingway's
prose.
Spent the next three years as a virtual placenti
spongiosi (those soulless medieval beings produced by
unimpregnated but extra-fertile women)* wandering the
catacombs of inner Albuquerque; experimenting with
artforms of various sorts, dimensions,
respectabilities: painting, drawing, poetry,
playwriting, acting, beatniking, stand-up comedy,
hallucinatory fits, performance art, guitaring.
Figured I had little in the way of manual dexterity or
instant charisma, so I best study stand-up comedy.

*Thanks to Jack Vernon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most current and insightful book on stand-up comedy, April 9, 2011

By 

Daria TUNCA (Embourg, Liège Belgium) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great American Literary Form (Paperback)

The following review has been posted here on behalf of its author, Izuu Nwankwo (PhD student, Nigeria)

There are very few scholarly books on stand-up acts and Tafoya's work remains the most current and insightful. Many books on stand-up comedy tend to be promotional, aimed mostly to serve as developmental guides for upcoming stand-up comedians. In Tafoya's the use of existing theory and criticism is at once innovative and groundbreaking, in stand-up comedy research. I find this book useful especially in the creative and convincing way it has manipulated the Freudian concepts of the id and the super-ego, in the understanding of how jokes make us laugh. One other thing that makes this work outstanding is the conversational manner in which the book is written. While we read, we are aware at the back of our minds that this is a scholarly work written by a practising stand-up comedian. In my view, this makes for a much more pleasurable reading as we get a grip on how and why stand-up comedy can also be categorised as literature. I have found this book indispensable in my own research due to the overall background information it carries with it. As such I believe it is a catalyst for further research, not only into stand-up, but also into other emergent popular performances and literature.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tafoya's History of the Hysterical, September 24, 2009

By 

Joe Romby Jr. "[e-mail]" (Staten Island, NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great American Literary Form (Paperback)

Eddie Tafoya, associate professor of American Literature, has the audacity to compare Richard Pryor's "Live on the Sunset Strip" to Dante Alighieri's "The Inferno," and has the perspicacity to make his assertion resound with conviction.

A Virgil in his own right, Tafoya takes the curious connoisseur of comedy, and the studious stand up, on an entertaining tour through the centuries in search of the secrets to laughter. From the shaman spellbinding an ancient tribe, to the showman killing a night club crowd, "The Legacy of the Wisecrack" is filled with arcane knowledge and neatly-documented facts which shine a spotlight on the origins, character, and history of this mysterious and singularly American--Great American Literary Form we call Stand-Up Comedy.

The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great American Literary Form

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A refresing new perspective at the meaning of humor, July 23, 2009

By 

Nancy L. Smoot - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great American Literary Form (Paperback)

Erudite author Eddie Tafoya presents an academic but highly entertaining history and study of humor. It takes a serious look at the human condition that is reflected in stand-up comedy: a safe way to expose the inner voice one would not otherwise dare to share in public. The reader's consciousness will be raised with the author's explanation of hidden meanings in humor. A truly enjoyable and educational read.

Nancy Smoot Tramont