Were We Right or Were We Right?: Steve Martin's Born Standing Up
Publishers Weekly -- Publishers Weekly, 11/30/2007 7:30:00 AM
Critics seem to agree that Martin, author of books including Cruel Shoes (comedy) and Shop Girl (a novel), has a real talent for writing, but are tempted to review the his comedy career itself alongside his memoir of its development.
Here's PW's starred review:
Neatly combining his personal and professional worlds, beloved comedian, filmmaker, author, magician and banjoist Martin (Pure Drivel) chronicles his life as a gifted young comedian in this evocative, heartfelt memoir, which proves less wild and crazy than wise and considerate—though no less funny for it. The typically reticent performer shares rarely disclosed memories of childhood—his father, a failed actor, harbored increasing anger toward his son through the years—and the anxiety attacks that plagued him for some two decades, along with his early success as a television comedy writer, first for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and the evolution of his stand-up routine. Sharp insight accompanies stories of his first adult gig (at an empty San Francisco coffee house), his pioneering "no punch lines" style ("My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh"), appearances on programs like The Steve Allen Show and breakthrough moments with small, confused audiences. Though vivid and entertaining throughout, Martin doesn’t dish any behind-the-scenes dirt from Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show; rather, he’s warm and generous toward everyone in his life, including girlfriends and colleagues. Tellingly, this intimate early career recap ends not with Martin’s decision to give up live performance or his film debut The Jerk, but with a visit to his parents and Knott’s Berry Bird Cage Farm, where he first performed as a teenager.
In the New York Times, Janet Maslin found it a “lean, incisive” book, as well as one that’s “smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin.”
Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Giles gives it a rare A, calling it a “spare, unexpectedly resonant remembrance.”
Sam Anderson, in New York Magazine, parses the career alongside the book, noting that the latter provides “further evidence of Martin’s talent for creating intimate distance.”
Erika Schickel does the same in the L.A. Times, finding the book “artless and sweet” (but worrying that it will “confuse those who come to it looking for laughs”).
Comedian David Schneider in the Times of London says that it is Martin’s “earnestness and almost masochistic self-analysis that make the book so fascinating.”
In related coverage, the New York Times and USA Today talk to Martin about the book and about future plans.
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