The Last Book I Read

Some months back I read George Carlin's posthumous autobiography and came away mildly disappointed. While there was lots of good stuff in it, much of it read like a confession of personal sins that frankly didn't seem any of my business. While I could understand the likely therapeutic value of getting such stories off his chest, it left meant less discussion of his art than I would have liked to see (so it would be fair to say my disappointment was based on what I wanted to read more than the quality of what was on the printed page). James Sullivan's third person biography is much closer to my interests, fleshing out the early stages of Carlin's career, and spending a fair amount of time on the significance of the routine and court case that share a title with this book. It's not in Carlin's voice, which was key to the best parts of the autobiography, but it ultimately does a better job of placing his career into the broader context of his times and the comedy world that evolved through the 1960s and 70s. In truth, if I hadn't read the autobiography first, I might find fault in the way Sullivan skirts some (some) of the personal stuff-- so in order to get a full picture of this influential comedy figure it probably requires one to read both.