For more than fifty years, beginning in 1949, Art Buchwald’s Pulitzer Prize–winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists and a popular player in the Washington world of Ethel and Ted Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham. One contemporary called Buchwald the “greatest satirist in the English language since Pope and Swift.”
Drawing on his most memorable columns and unpublished correspondence with other famous people, Funny Business shows how Art Buchwald became an American original. Like Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and James Thurber, he satirized political scoundrels, lampooned the powerful, and “worshipped the quicksand” that ten presidents walked on, as Buchwald joked. The key to his style of humor, Buchwald once stated, was to “treat light subjects seriously and serious subjects lightly.”
This revealing book is studded with stories of Buchwald’s friendships with Humphrey Bogart, John Steinbeck, Irwin Shaw, William Styron, Erma Bombeck, Frank Sinatra, Robert Frost, and others. But there was a darker, more serious side to Art Buchwald. A childhood spent in foster homes taught him to see comedy as a refuge. Buchwald also struggled with depression, a secret he kept from the public for nearly thirty years.
Throughout his career, Buchwald wrote about such historical events as the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Watergate, and the 9/11 terrorist attack. Featured here are stories of Buchwald’s nonstop one-liners, known in his day as “Buchshots.”
Please contact Caroline with any questions at cpak@alexlibraryva.org.
