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About the Author Lawrence J. Epstein was minding his own business when this literary agent called him up and asked him to consider writing a book. Two minutes after hanging up the phone, Larry came up with the idea of writing a book about Jewish comedians. It had been a long journey to get to such a book. Growing up in Queens with his brother Richard, Larry excelled early at avoiding homework by watching numerous comedians on television. His troubled parents gave him a tape recorder to take his mind off Groucho and all the other comedians he watched. Instead, the young boy used the recorder to make up routines with friends who, for some reason, refused to laugh at his uproarious jokes. Larry survived the hike up the mountain of learning until he became a professor of English. He taught courses in journalism, Jewish thought, and mass media as well as writing. His students thought he was very funny. He knows this because he asked them before every test if they liked his jokes, and they always said they did. Along the way, a young woman named Sharon took pity on him and married him. They had four children—Michael, Elana, Rachel, and Lisa. His children did not think he was funny, even after he threatened to cut off their allowance. Luckily, though, he got to write about a lot of people who were very funny in his new book The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America. You can read an excerpt of that book on this site. If you want to, you can also order the book. Please, though. If you read it and don't think it is funny, don't tell him. He's had a hard enough life. [Main]
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