Blake J. Harris's funny, insightful Emperor of Nothing is as much a history of stand-up comedy as it is of television producer Larry David's life. David's inner circle opened up to the biographer for some wonderfully intimate moments on the path to his hard-won success.
In 1972, David found his "calling" at the Improv club in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, and some of the book's greatest moments arrive because of who was around David at that time. Jeff Goldblum was in David's acting class. Jerry Seinfeld was honing material at the Comic Strip on the Upper East Side. Chris Albrecht was a manager at the Improv; he became president of HBO and greenlit an hourlong special of David's "making of" a stand-up act (titled Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm). Harris (The History of the Future) portrays the small world of stand-up comedy as a supportive, creative breeding ground. The seeds of David's observational comedy were planted among comic buddies in postshow diners and bars.
Harris's magic touch lies in how he allows everyone involved to tell their version. Readers will feel as if they're sitting alongside Seinfeld writers and actors, hearing them recount the birth of such golden nuggets as the "Soup Nazi" character and "The Contest" (an episode on an exercise in "self-restraint," in which the word "masturbation" is never uttered). Harris juxtaposes dialogue from Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm with conversations between the writers and actors as they formed the shows.
Harris takes readers into the heart of the creative process, as well as into what makes David tick. --Jennifer M. Brown