Books: Laid-Back Camaraderie

A COUPLE OF COMEDIANS by Don Carpenter

Simon & Schuster; 220 pages;

$9.95

In A Couple of Comedians, Narrator David Ogilvie—gagman of the title team —makes a list, in descending order of status, of the Los Angeles hotels favored by showfolk. He does it perfectly, beginning with the Bel-Air, ending with the Montecito. This may seem a small felicity, but it is precisely the sort of thing that writers of parboiled Hollywood romans à clef usually get wrong or skip altogether in their haste to get to the casting couch and the boudoir.

Verisimilitude is...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!