The Comedian as Confidence Man

The Comedian as Confidence Man is a lively, fascinating analysis of humorists and their work which examines the humorist's internal conflict between the social critic who demands to be taken seriously and the comedian who never can be -- the irony fatigue condition. [The book] concentrates on eight American literary and performing comedians from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, whose social observations require the obligatory, 'Only kidding, folks!" even when they may not be.

[The book] is at once a history and penetrating interpretation of the complexities of humor and of the various individuals selected for examination. Kaufman’s analytic sweep of literary texts and comic performances is wildly imaginative: Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, Benjamin Franklin’s literary confidence games, Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man, the routines of stand-up comics Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, the works of Kurt Vonnegut, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Pudd’nhead Wilson. In between are excellent insights into an array of the most influential writers and stand-up comics.

The Comedian as Confidence Man breaks new ground, not only in interpreting works that have been exhaustively mined, but in making us see new relationships in comic performance that cut across media. Such a foray can only encourage new approaches to the study of American humor.