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Ben Yagoda Uses Steve Martin to Disprove Truism

Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Ben Yagoda, books, memoir, Slate, Steve Martin

Emily has posted a couple of times on Steve Martin's new book, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life, and I thought I wouldn't let that stop me from directing you to Ben Yagoda's fine review of the book in Slate. Heck, let's flood the zone!

It's a truism that positive reviews are difficult to write, but you sure wouldn't know it reading this one. Indeed, Yagoda's artful review not only persuades that the book has the qualities he attributes to it—many reviews accomplish that—but also has made me, once unsure, entirely eager to read it, a far meaner feat.

Yagoda cites some interesting demographic data to prove that huge numbers of Americans haven't any conception whatsoever of Martin as a standup comedian. I was born in 1970, so I was about ten years old when he was peaking. I vividly remember his fame as a standup without having had the slightest notion what it was all about. I remember "King Tut" and "two wild and crazy guys," but for the most part he amused people far older than myself. "My" Steve Martin was just a touch later than that, the one who appeared in The Man with Two Brains and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

The sharp folks at fwis also explain why the book's cover is so effective. I'm not sure if they are aware that the designer of Martin's 1978 LP A Wild and Crazy Guy might deserve the lion's share of the credit. —Martin Schneider

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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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