One Big Joke - Paperback

by Laurence Shames (Author)

"What is with you lately?" Lenny's wife would like to know. "You've been acting like everything is one big joke." And it's true-unemployed TV writer Lenny Sullivan has been having trouble seeing his life and times as anything more than fodder for edgy wisecracks. But when he bolts to Key West to refresh his lighter side, things suddenly turn serious. Well, sort of serious. A bullying businessman in league with a pair of bumbling mobsters is plotting to burn down his best friend's struggling comedy club. The pill-popping star of his last best chance at a hit show is under a death threat from a very sore loser in a love triangle. And Lenny's staunchest ally in the fight to keep the club, the star, and the laughs alive happens to be a 90-something named Bert the Shirt. Fortunately, Bert has a soft spot for comedians and is the savviest if not the most grammatical guy in town... Deftly balancing suspense and humor, mayhem and romance, Key West color and showbiz glitz, ONE BIG JOKE uproariously entertains while making a sly but impassioned argument for the saving grace of comedy in tough times.

Author Biography

Laurence Shames has been a New York City taxi driver, lounge singer, furniture mover, lifeguard, dishwasher, gym teacher, and shoe salesman. Having failed to distinguish himself in any of those professions, he turned to writing full-time in 1976 and has not done an honest day's work since. His basic laziness notwithstanding, Shames has published more than twenty books and hundreds of magazine articles and essays. Best known for his critically acclaimed series of Key West novels, he has also authored non-fiction and enjoyed considerable though largely secret success as a collaborator and ghostwriter. Shames has penned four New York Times bestsellers. These have appeared on four different lists, under four different names, none of them his own. This might be a record. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1951, to chain-smoking parents of modest means but flamboyant emotions, Shames graduated summa cum laude from NYU in 1972 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Shortly after finishing college, he began annoying editors by sending them short stories they hated. He also wrote longer things he thought of as novels. He couldn't sell them. By 1979 he'd somehow passed himself off as a journalist and was publishing in top-shelf magazines like Playboy, Outside, Saturday Review, and Vanity Fair. In 1982, Shames was named Ethics columnist of Esquire, and also made a contributing editor to that magazine. By 1986 he'd made the transition to non-fiction books. His 1991 bestseller, BOSS OF BOSSES, written for two FBI agents, got him thinking about the Mafia. It also bought him a ticket out of New York and a sweet little house in Key West, where he finally got back to Plan A: writing fiction. With FLORIDA STRAITS, Shames introduced the much-loved character of Bert the Shirt and launched his perennially popular series of KEY WEST CAPERS, of which ONE BIG JOKE is lucky number thirteen. To learn more, please visit www.LaurenceShames.com