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Title: The Joker

Subtitle: A Memoir

Author: Andrew Hudgins

Narrator: Jeff Cummings

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-11-13

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

Since Andrew Hudgins was a child, he was a compulsive joke teller, so when he sat down to write about jokes, he found that he was writing about himself what jokes taught him and mistaught him, how they often delighted him but occasionally made him nervous with their delight in chaos and sometimes anger. Because Hudginss father, a West Point graduate, served in the US Air Force, his family moved frequently; he learned to relate to other kids by telling jokes and watching how his classmates responded. And jokes opened him up to the serious, taboo subjects that his family didnt talk about openly religion, race, sex, and death. Hudgins tells and analyzes the jokes that explore the contradictions in the Baptist religion he was brought up in, the jokes that told him what his parents would not tell him about sex, and the racist jokes that his uncle loved, his father hated, and his mother, caught in the middle, was ambivalent about. This audiobook is both a memoir and a meditation on jokes and how they educated, delighted, and occasionally horrified him as he grew.

©2013 Andrew Hudgins (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Members Reviews:

Who Really Cares?

It's taken me a few weeks after finishing this book to convince myself to write a review, primarily because I ordered the book based on my wife's unqualified love for the author's poetry, specifically "After the Lost War." Not only has she read "After the Lost War" many times, but also she prowls used book stores to find copies to give away to friends. So I thought, "Hey, I'll buy this book by someone who now teaches at my alma mater and then share it with my wife." But the book has little or no merit. I don't know what inspired the author to want to share anything in it with the world. I have placed the book on a shelf and will never mention it again to my wife. What seems to be happening here is that the author wants to have things both ways. He wants to share the jokes that made him laugh while growing up, but then try to exempt himself from any connection to what makes the jokes humorous. Perhaps the best path would be just to let these bad jokes die. I mean, the ones the author chooses to regale his readers with are not even that funny. He and I are just about the same age,and I had heard the vast majority of his attempts at witticism before. While I really enjoy a good joke (anothe reason I thought I might like the book), I simply would not trot out these weak samples. I mean, once you decide that you're none of the things you argue that you're not, take that knowledge and move on. Why write a book on the subject? Who really cares?

I gave the book two rather than one star because I love my wife, and she loves his poetry.

Andrew Hudgins' Book the Joker is Startlng and Poweful

Honest, passionate, original, and moving book, which speaks to the dark and light inside us all. A brave and moving piece of work.

Edwina T

Many hilarious jokes...but too much analysis!

Laughed all the way through...except for the many spots where there was too much analysis. A joke is a joke, let us hear it or read it, laugh a lot, then get on with life...or the next joke, whichever comes first!

Disappointed

I heard the author interviewed on NPR and thought the book sounded interesting and funny; unfortunately it's neither.