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Overview
When Henry Halloran's girlfriend dumped him, his Boston-based life suddenly seemed pointless. He was thirty-two with a dead-end job, and nothing on the horizon. There was obviously only one place to go: Hollywood.
The Comedy Writer is the story of how Henry—armed with nothing more than a few ideas, a nothing-to-lose attitude, and the desire to be a screenwriter—joins myriad hopefuls in the City of Angels and achieves an L.A. kind of fame. From the surreal squalor of his one-room pad at the Blue Terrace apartments, he encounters nympho starlets, death-obsessed Rollerbladers, philosophical midgets, scruple-free producers, and an unforgettably psychotic roommate named Colleen.
Combining the mordant wit and insight of Nathanael West with the lyricism and irony of a postmodern Candide, The Comedy Writer is a bawdy romp around and through the dream factory, in which Henry learns that while talent and integrity may be relative terms, life does, after all, have meaning.
Sure to appeal to anyone who has ever dreamed of Hollywood success, who has found him- or herself a full-fledged adult without a clue for the future, or whoever thought Los Angeles might represent the end of modern civilization, The Comedy Writer is an incomparable comic tour de force marked by the kind of telling detail only a true insider can provide.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307517999 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crown Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/06/2009 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 994,461 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Ever since my sign from God, I've had reason to believe there's something after this, but I'm in no rush to find out what it is. I love life. Not as much as I did as a kid, of course, but how can you after Christmas and Halloween start to lose their buzz, and booze tastes a little too familiar, as does death, and sex isn't such a new experience either? You'd have to have been a pretty miserable kid to be happier as an adult, and that I wasn't. I was a carefree little shit who searched for duck nests and caught frogs and sat up in my tree house in the summer thanking God for my youth. I always appreciated youth. I remember being eighteen and driving around Rhode Island with my girlfriend Grace and a few of the guys, drinking beer and listening to the radio, and I pulled the car over and looked at everyone and I said, "Do you realize how great this is? We're young!" And I felt it. And I still ache from it.
So there I am fifteen years later--it's March 1990--and I'd just moved to L.A. three days earlier, and I'm driving along listening to Jonathan Richman sing about that summer feeling, and I felt happy and the happiness turned into a craving for ice cream. I pulled into a minimall that had a big yellow plastic sign advertising a locksmith and take-out Japanese food and frozen yogurt and I got out of the car. There was a white van parked in front of the entrance to the Baskin-Robbins and a midget leaning against the van. I was about twenty feet away from the midget when I noticed a big gangly guy about my age coming toward me from about twenty feet on the other side of the entrance, meaning we were about forty feet apart. He had a broad smile plastered on his face and he was looking right at me as we were converging, and it was the kind of goofy smile that I would normally avoid making eye contact with in the big city, but then I thought, Hell, he's just a big happy guy, and so I returned a big happy smile myself, and just as I was about to enter the store and the big happy guy was passing me, and in fact we were both a couple of big happy guys, he said to me, "Get a load of the midget," and he kept walking and I was left standing there with a big smile and an unhappy midget glaring at me, since I was obviously in cahoots with the other smiling idiot.
I got a hot flash and a stinging, itchy feeling and I tried to think of something to say, but everything sounded lame, so I just walked into the store, but I wasn't happy now and the craving was gone. I briefly considered treating the midget to something, except I knew that would be dumb, too, like "Here, little guy, have an ice cream cone," so I just bought a small cup of chocolate yogurt for myself and ducked out of the store without looking back.
I had intended to head back to my motel, but I needed to find an apartment and I was bummed out about what had just happened and scared about being in a new city and somehow inspired by this fear, so I kept driving west and as soon as I got to the ocean, I saw the crazy woman standing on the building.
Many of the important things that have happened in my life have happened by accident. I was born with great parents, I grew up in a nice town, I crashed my bike in third grade and got a concussion, I have fun brothers and sisters, I saw a UFO when I was eighteen, I had a fantastic girlfriend in high school--she died young. Serendipity. Or who knows, maybe not. Maybe more like calculated accidents. If you open yourself up to things, things happen. Good and bad. I didn't pick my parents, nor my brothers and sisters, but I was out at 3 a.m. when I saw the spaceship. My girlfriend Grace was out at the same hour when she got killed.
It's like when I was ten years old and I was fishing for scup down the Cape with my younger sister Kara, but I caught my dog instead. Chris was standing behind me as I was casting off the Green Pond bridge and I stuck her in the hind haunch. The hook was in Chris, but it ripped my heart out and I immediately tried to reel her out some slack. She was a big hysterical German shepherd, though, and before I knew it, the pole had been pulled out of my hands and was click-clacking up the street behind a blur of yelping fur.
My parents didn't know why their son had come running into the yard sobbing, but since Kara wasn't with me, they feared the worst. I was too upset to tell them where my sister was, so my father shook me, like in the movies, but it wasn't a movie and I just cried louder. "Where the hell's Kara?!" he screamed. After I managed to squeak out, "The harbor," my mother made a pathetic lurch in the harbor's direction--pathetic because taking the car was the call, seeing as the harbor was a mile away, and also because she ran straight into a concrete block we'd been using for second base and ended up with a cracked fibula and a row of stitches.
That's why when I saw the woman jump off the building on my third day in L.A., I just climbed back into my Plymouth Arrow and drove away. It didn't pay to get hysterical about things. I stopped at a liquor store, calmly guzzled two cans of Bud, then went to my pale blue Hollywood motel room and lay on the bed.
The woman was obviously wacko. Maybe I could have done a few things differently, but it wasn't my fault that the system had broken down. Still, I couldn't shake the look on her face the moment before she went. What was it? Embarrassment? And the corpse--not what I expected from sixteen stories. Not as bad actually. She'd hit a tree, landed on her back on the sidewalk. No big splatter, just a trickle coming from under her. Her eyes were open, her flesh the color of Maypo, her spirit hung over the block.
After the shadows darkened on the walls of my room, I walked up the street for a cheeseburg. Several loud bars I passed--all guys, it sounded like. I remembered it was St. Paddy's Day. Back home, I would've been pounding them at the Dockside or Clark's, or maybe some dive over in Charlestown. Along the way I picked up an armful of litter, for the karma. I don't recommend it. It starts small--a gum wrapper here, a Thai food take-out menu there--before you know it, you can't pass anything without feeling guilty.
At Hamburger House I changed my mind about eating. It was suddenly too hot for food, I felt dizzy, and there was something about the people behind the counter: the way they moved, their voices, a fleeting awareness of bodies occupied by spirits.
I went back to bed but couldn't sleep. It was an unfamiliar room, and I wasn't at ease. Maybe I could have saved the woman. I prayed for her soul, and then for mine. The place was still warm from the day's blast and the pounding in my head started again. Ever since leaving Boston, I'd been having it, always in the same spot, the back on the left, behind my ear. I kept turning my pillow over, searching for a cool spot. The sheets were too starched; the blanket was some kind of fuzzy foam the color of a lawn flamingo. Occasionally a car headlight passed across the walls. It reminded me of staying at my grandmother's as a kid. I'd hated it there. It was a city house and I was a country kid, and my parents were gone, everyone was gone except for a nervous old lady who mumbled prayers for long-dead relatives as nonchalantly as I chewed Bazooka.
Finally I slept, only to be awakened at exactly 3:33 a.m. by the couple fighting in the next room. It sounded as if they were rolling candlepins in there. The guy screamed, she cried, he apologized, she screamed, he screamed, she cried again, he got sick of apologizing. So this is what Californians sound like, I thought. I turned on the TV, found a rebroadcast of the news. The newscaster alluded to an "unspeakable crime in Bellflower," then spoke in graphic detail about a man who'd butchered his two kids, along with a niece.
I slept fitfully, got up at seven to the sound of someone rummaging through the trash outside my window. Right away I thought of the Suicide Lady, her empty body cooling in a bag somewhere, and I knew it was true: I definitely could have saved her.
Interviews
On Wednesday, May 13th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Peter Farrelly to discuss THE COMEDY WRITER.
Moderator: Thank you for joining us this evening, Peter Farrelly. We are looking forward to discussing THE COMEDY WRITER with you. How are you doing?
Peter Farrelly: I'm doing great, thank you.
Dottie from Seattle, WA: Greetings, Peter Farrelly. I'm intrigued by the description of THE COMEDY WRITER. In your own words, can you describe what it's all about? Thanks.
Peter Farrelly: It's based on something that happened to me. When I moved out to Los Angeles to get into the film business, I one day stumbled across a suicide -- a woman jumped off a building, and I was the only witness. I had called the cops, but they didn't respond because they said it was a "private building," and eventually she took the leap. So, I wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times Magazine about it, because the system had broken down, and I thought something could have been done. After the article was published, I was contacted by approximately 30 to 35 very suicidal people, because my phone number was listed, and over a two-week period, I met with most of them, including six at one time, and eventually I got my number changed, and the calls stopped. But people had called because in the article I had been trying to help this woman, and they would say things like, "I read your article, and I'm really suicidal too, would you meet me for coffee?" Anyway, this gave me the idea for the book. The book is about a guy who moves west to become a comedy writer, and he does witness a suicide, writes about it in the L.A. Times Magazine, just as I did, but instead of 30 suicidal people calling, I have one crazy disturbed woman show up at his door. So, it's really about a guy trying to write humor while dealing with somebody's serious problems, which, incidentally, I find makes writing humor easier.
Phil Reison from Oak Park, IL: It seems that most novelists are praying that their novels will get optioned for movies, since Hollywood pays better than the books themselves often do. So, as a screenwriter, what made you turn to a novel? Also, is THE COMEDY WRITER bound for Hollywood? Thanks.
Peter Farrelly: I like writing novels because of the freedom it gives me. A screenplay, no matter how crazy you want to be, has constraints. A book gives you the freedom to do anything, without worrying about whether it's commercial, about whether it has a first, second, or third act, and whether the ending is happy enough to let the test audiences go home happy. Whether or not it's a movie, I never think of it in terms of that when I'm writing it, but I guess that's always a possibility.
Barnie from Newark, NJ: THE COMEDY WRITER has some fantastic dialogue. It's a really fun read, and I can't wait to finish it. Did it start out as a screenplay?
Peter Farrelly: No, it didn't. In fact, I cut some dialogue, because I thought it sounded too "movie-ish." I gave the manuscript to my brother, and he circled lines that sounded "too good," like in a movie.
Ken from Iowa: Given a similar situation to the ones described in your book, would you say you personally are closer to Henry, or to the Hollywood moguls he encounters?
Peter Farrelly: I would hope to be closer to Henry. I think Henry and I are different in certain respects. I'm a raging hypochondriac, but I don't masturbate as much as he does. And the truth is, I still live in Massachusetts and have been lucky enough not to deal with too many Ted Bowmans. On the other hand, I can be pretty creepy, too.
ImAWingNut from LaPorte City, IA: How did you go about directing Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in "Dumb and Dumber"? Did you just duck and cover?
Peter Farrelly: Pretty much. When you're working with guys that talented, you're wise to give them a free rein. They were both extremely gracious in collaborating with Bobby and myself, considering we were first-time directors and didn't know what the f&*% we were doing. On the other hand, you do have to make sure they don't go too far off the page where you lose the meaning of the scene, but luckily, they were too smart for that. By the way, I'm really liking this, because I get to think slowly.
Marlene from New York City: Could you compare the book industry to the film industry? As a former book publicist, I'd be interested to hear your take on it. Thank you, Mr. Farrelly.
Peter Farrelly: Thank God for that question! You know, for all the grief the film industry gets, I've got to tell you, it is heaven compared to the publishing industry. I am astonished at how low the expectations of the book publishing industry are. For instance, this barnesandnoble.com chat room wouldn't be happening if I didn't call the publicist at Doubleday every single day. It's like they expect the book to come out and survive on its own, which is very frustrating after having made movies, where we spend two or three days at press junkets, where we get to meet three, four, or five hundred different media types. I find it very irritating to have to seemingly do everything to have to sell this book. It seems like the only person who's done anything at Doubleday is a woman named Tammy Blake, my beloved publicist. The rest of them couldn't care less. Not that I expected to make a ton of dough on a book, but when you spend 10 years working on one, you hope that it has a chance to be discovered by the public. There. Now I've pissed off the whole publishing industry.
Jacob Y. from Pittsburgh, PA: What do you think of the blurb about your book, "A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES meets 'The Player' "? Would you say this is an accurate description?
Peter Farrelly: Yeah, because I wrote it! Like I said, I have to do everything for this d&*$ book!
Grumps from Boston, MA: The early scene where Henry's agent is criticizing his screenplay reads like a Syd Field workshop. How much of this scene is taken from your own experience learning to write screenplays?
Peter Farrelly: I can't say any of it is taken verbatim from any experience I had. However, I've had similar comments, particularly when I was starting out, from friends, mostly, because producers and executives and agents would not really take the time to give such good constructive criticism.
Jonas from Bensonhurst, NY: It seems that Henry became a screenwriter by default.... Is the same true for you? How did you get your start?
Peter Farrelly: Absolutely correct. Like most screenwriters I know, I wasn't trained to be one. I was an accounting major at Providence College, just like Henry, and upon graduation was a salesman for a couple of years, again like Henry. But I quit my job as a salesman when I got it into my head that I wanted to write a book. My goal was to hopefully get published and perhaps get lucky enough to land a teaching job at a reasonably good college. I just wanted to be a writer. I applied to UMass Amherst in the Creative Writing Graduate School, luckily got in (considering I had a 2.0 in college), spent a year there, transferred to Columbia when I couldn't get a teaching assistantship at UMass (due to my business background), and once there decided on a whim to write a screenplay. It just seemed a lot easier. I bought a book called SCREENPLAY by Syd Field, learned the format, i.e., what's capitalized, what's not, where the dialogue goes, etc., then kicked off a screenplay in two weeks with a friend of mine named Bennett Yellin (who eventually cowrote "Dumb and Dumber" with my brother and me). After writing it, I was having dinner with a girl in New York, when she mentioned that Eddie Murphy had just moved in next to her parents in Alpine, New Jersey. I asked her if there was any way she could give him the script. She was thrilled to do so, as she wanted to meet him. The next day she called me and said she'd done the deed. I couldn't believe it, but I still expected him to take the screenplay and throw it away. Then about a month later, I was watching Letterman, and and Eddie was on. He started talking about a screenplay his neighbor had given him that he really liked. He said it was called "Dust to Dust." I almost hit my head on the ceiling. I called Eddie Murphy Productions the next day, they flew us out to L.A., and I had my foot in the door. The screenplay was never made into a movie, but the characters were sort of the seed for Lloyd and Harry in "Dumb and Dumber."
Greg from somewhere out here: I've just started reading this book, and although it's at times darkly or cynically approached, you write a lot about karma. Do you believe in it, and how did you put it to work in your book?
Peter Farrelly: Greg, I'm a little confused by the second part of your question. I definitely believe in karma, in the sense that what goes around comes around, but when you say how did I put it to work in my book, if you mean how did Henry the character put it to use, I would say he took it a step too far, where he became almost obsessive-compulsive, i.e., picking up all the litter, etc. And if you mean, how did I put it to use in writing the book, I would just say I tried to not f*&# too many people over while I was writing it.
Halley from Bradenton, IL: I have just begun reading your book, and one thing I have noticed is that you don't pull any punches when talking about women, for example, Henry's across-the-hall neighbor's duffle-bag sized breasts. Do you think this adds to the comedy of your book, or are you trying to describe Henry's point of view, or your own? Please respond.
Peter Farrelly: I'm trying to describe Henry's point of view. I think too many times in fiction, and movies, and television, the protagonists have become too politically correct to say that they notice a good set of jugs. I know that this could be offensive to women, but the book isn't about a guy who is overly aware of that fact. As far as my own views, yeah, I like big tits, too.
ImAWingNut from LaPorte City, Iowa: What was your take on the little phrase "The Dumbing of America" as in regards to your films?
Peter Farrelly: I thought it was insane. They made it sound like we'd created a genre, when really, all we were doing was the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, etc., etc., etc. I think it was slow news time, and in fact, it got to the point where they spent a whole episode of "David Brinkley This Week" discussing it. My brother, Bobby, and I were flabbergasted, and the kicker was, it became clear to us that none of the morons had even seen the movie.
Ernie from Decatur, GA: Who are your literary and celluloid inspirations? Whose books must you read and whose movies must you see? Thank you for taking my question.
Peter Farrelly: Over the years, my brother and I have been asked this question a lot, and we always racked our brains to come up with an answer. We would say that we saw very few movies growing up, and were influenced mostly by TV, especially "The Three Stooges" and "The Andy Griffith Show." However, we've come to realize that we were trying to give them an answer to a question that really didn't apply to us, because the truth of the matter is, though we liked comedy growing up, especially the Zucker Brothers movies, and a few "Beach Blanket Bingo" types, we weren't really influenced by them. We were more influenced by our immediate family and friends, and a lot of the characters we grew up with in Rhode Island. As for books, I'm not particularly well read, but I would say Phillip Roth is the guy who has influenced me the most, particularly his books MY LIFE AS A MAN and PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT. I also like a guy named George Pelecanos, who writes Washington, DC-based mysteries that are extremely fun. Then, of course, I think everybody or most people are influenced by THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, and I guess I am, too.
Janine from Harrisburg, PA: Since adaptations of any book into film require that you change some of the book, if you were given the chance to write the screenplay for THE COMEDY WRITER, what would you need to cut out?
Peter Farrelly: Wow. That is a tremendously difficult question. I would certainly have to cut a lot to make it fit into a screenplay formula and would probably get pressure from the studio to change the ending, which I felt was realistic, but they would probably call disappointing. I guess...I'm sorry, this isn't the type of question I can answer in such short notice.
Phyllis from Newtown, PA: What about your next book? Will it deal with Hollywood as well?
Peter Farrelly: I've no idea, I haven't begun it, though there's a good chance it would, seeing as that's what I'm doing at this point in my life. On the other hand, I've considered writing a book about newlyweds, because I got married a year and a half ago, and there's a lot of fodder there, too.
Rinkie from Pennsylvania: About writing in general.... Do you ever feel that the reading public is more and more "shallow" regarding your creative mind, thus, finding yourself possibly considering and/or revising scripts to a lesser level of comprehension?
Peter Farrelly: Whether or not people are not as astute as they once were is anyone's guess. But I try not to "dumb down" just to please the lowest common denominator. Then again, I'm no genius, so I'm not exactly appealing to the brainiacs out there, either.
Jennifer from Amityville, NY: As the screenwriter for "Dumb and Dumber," did you get to interact with the actors at all? How much did Jim Carrey actually follow the script in any of his scenes?
Peter Farrelly: Well, I think I already answered the second part of the question, but as far as the first, my brother and I also directed the movie, and yes, we got to spend a lot of time with Jim Carrey. He's actually very unlike his screen persona. When we weren't shooting, he was pretty much one of the guys, except he had more panic attacks than the rest of us.
Aloysius from Denver, CO: What's your next film project? Will you ever write the screenplay for THE COMEDY WRITER? Will that be turned into a film anytime soon? Do you have any casting choices?
Peter Farrelly: As far as whether the book turns into a movie, I can't say right now. As for my next film project, I want you all listen up very carefully: We have a movie called "There's Something About Mary" coming out on July 15th, and if I do say so myself, it's going to blow your f*&$ing minds. It stars Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Ben Stiller, and Chris Elliott, and it's about as wild a comedy as you can get away with. Trust me on this one.
Kenny from Boston, MA: Who or what was the inspiration for the unforgettable Tiffany Pittman???
Peter Farrelly: I have to be very careful here. I won't say that it was based on any one person, because I'm terrified of lawyers, but I had a woman across the hall from me, when I first moved from L.A. who was a Ms. Something-or-other, and tortured the hell out of me.
Kendra from North Carolina: Have you ever lived in a place like Henry's apartment?
Peter Farrelly: Yes, I lived in that very apartment.
Carter from Madera, CA: Do you have any advice for a struggling screenwriter? Any books you can recommend?
Peter Farrelly: For a screenwriter, I would definitely recommend SCREENPLAY by Syd Field, and ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE by William Goldman. They're very informative and accurate. WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN? is also another great Hollywood book, but is more fun than instructional. The bottom line, though, is you'll never learn how to write a screenplay by reading a book, you'll just learn the format and how to present yourself in a professional way. In fact, you could probably learn more about screenwriting from watching movies, good or bad. I would also advise you to not try to write what you think they want, but to put on paper the stories that interest or amuse you. We wrote "Dumb and Dumber" five years before it was ever made, and everyone said it was a piece of sh&*. Who knows? Maybe it was, but it got made, and people went to see it, because it was different. As for writing novels, my only advice is to keep writing, and hope that eventually, if things go well, you could sell a book, and do well enough to teach at a reasonably good college.
Moderator: Thank you for taking the time to answer all of our questions, Peter Farrelly. We're glad you pursued your publisher to set up a chat with us -- it's been great fun. Do you have any final comments for the online audience?
Peter Farrelly: I'm grateful that you took the time to tune in, and I wish you all the best.