EMPEROR OF NOTHING

How the comedic force behind Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm became master of his domain.

Neurotic, witty, and obsessed with the minutiae of everyday existence—the real-life Larry David isn’t appreciably different from the characters he’s created for television, according to this biography by Harris (Console Wars, 2014; The History of the Future, 2019). It took time for David to find his comic footing, and he often stood in his own way. Entering New York’s stand-up scene in the 1970s after a string of odd jobs, he rapidly gained a reputation as a “comic’s comic,” gifted at highbrow observations about sex and relationships. He also became notorious for his cantankerous behavior: He’d storm off the stage if an audience wasn’t to his liking, and his stubborn refusal to accept notes on his scripts doomed his early forays into Hollywood. In Jerry Seinfeld, he found a perfect foil for his fussy sensibility; they shared a love of “d’ja ever notice…?” observational humor, but Seinfeld had a gift for diplomacy that David lacked with NBC executives. Together, they shaped the country’s top-rated TV show, though David’s success didn’t keep him from perseverating on his failures—most infamously the much-hated Seinfeld finale he scripted. But with Curb, every anxiety became grist for the mill. Harris’ book benefits from conversations with David and many in his orbit, but that access is largely used to explore David’s career path and the origins of beloved Seinfeld and Curb gags, with little about his interior, off-camera life. (The end of his first marriage is sped past; his daughters are discussed largely in the context of them pressuring him to shoot a cameo on Hannah Montana.) A sense of internal dissatisfaction prevails—David may have come out on top, but he’ll never be convinced of it.

An affectionate study of the “no hugging, no learning” sitcom guru.