True Story: A Novel

True Story

Author	Bill Maher
Language	English
Publisher	Random House. Simon & Schuster
Publication date	1994
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	302 [1]
ISBN	0-7432-4251-3
Followed by	When You Ride Alone You Ride with bin Laden

True Story: A Novel is a book by Bill Maher. It was Maher's first book, and his only novel. It was first published in 1994 ^[2] by Random House and was published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster. The book is an episodic novel detailing the true accounts of Maher and other stand-up comics in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Production

Maher began writing True Story while he was working in comedy clubs, shortly after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in English. ^[3]

I did have a deep desire to write one novel. I always believed from my English studies that most novelists wrote one great novel and then pretty much wrote the same one over and over. So I thought I'd just write one.

— Bill Maher

Reception

Richard Bernstein from The New York Times gave a mixed to favourable review, stating "when True Story works, it works because of Mr. Maher's energetic intelligence and his creation of characters whose prolonged sophomorism has distinct qualities", ^[1] as did Raw Sawhill from The New York Times, who stated that whilst the first half of the book seemed like "an underdramatized blur", Maher "comes through with a handful of well-conceived scenes" in its second half. ^[2]

References

1. Bernstein, Richard (June 21, 2000). "Books of the Times; A Comic Who Writes What He Knows". The New York Times . Retrieved April 5, 2013.
2. Sawhill, Ray (June 18, 2000). "True Story". The New York Times . Retrieved April 5, 2013.
3. Mifflin, Lawrie (February 4, 1997). "Mix Comedy and Politics With Strange Bedfellows, Then Hope for Sparks". The New York Times . Retrieved April 5, 2013.