You might not know who Jenny Pentland is, but if you read her new book, This Will Be Funny Later (Harper, $27.99), you’ll want to; the hilarious memoir, by turns scorching and poignant, reveals what’s like to have one of America’s funniest comedians—Roseanne Barr—for a mother.
Inspired by an heiress living in Paris when Hitler invaded, who might have gone home like most Americans did, but instead stayed and risked her life to help strangers.
Melanie Chartoff has worked as an actor both on and off Broadway, and she’s endeared herself to audiences with the characters she’s created on Fridays, Seinfeld, Newhart, Parker Lewis and Rugrats. Now, she’s turned to writing, and she talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about Odd Woman Out: Exposure in Essays and Stories (Books… Read more »
Miriam Parker’s The Shortest Way Home goes deeper than its bubbly, clear surface, subtly questioning conventional definitions of success for its heroine, Hannah, who begins the novel with a lucrative job and a rich boyfriend.
