Hollywood dealmaking as seen from the inside out.
A veteran television writer and producer chronicles his struggle to get a TV show sold and into production.
Kaplan’s pilot, about a woman in a relationship with a man half her age, attracts industry interest when Glenn Close signs on, then even more buzz when Close suggests Pete Davidson as her co-star. What follows is a blizzard of emails, texts, premeetings, Zoom meetings, and postmortems with the actors, their agents, and reps from streaming services and production companies. These would read as tediously as they sound, were it not for Kaplan’s wry, ironic delivery, and his wearied perspective as the pitches and counter-pitches plod on for months. Kaplan is also a New Yorker cartoonist, and his journal entries have the same snappy rhythm and pace as cartoon captions; each day’s reflections rarely run more than a few pages. Because the diary covers 2022, Kaplan notes that year’s cataclysmic events: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the pandemic. His project thus becomes “an aspirational comedy…in dystopian times.” At the same time, he writes about his everyday life with his wife and children in Los Angeles, including home repairs and recipes for vegan soups and casseroles. In the end, Showtime pulls out of the deal, and Kaplan realizes that his book is about not shooting his TV show. But even this he finds “profound,” and he achieves a certain equanimity, writing that he doesn’t “need or want anything other than what I have.” In the context of today’s Hollywood, that comes close to achieving enlightenment.
Hollywood dealmaking as seen from the inside out.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781250370334
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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