It's no slight against comedian Jena Friedman to say that the title of her first book should be taken largely at face value. Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera features not comedic essays but essential essays about comedy written by a woman who has been reporting for duty in a male-dominated and "comically unregulated work environment" for going on 20 years. Hilarious!
Together, the book's 16 autographical pieces chart Friedman's career path. She grew up in New Jersey in the 1990s and began performing stand-up in the mid-aughts. The job had its share of frustrations: wretched pay, predatory men, stupid questions. In one of the book's strongest pieces, "Brief Interviews with Hilarious Men," Friedman asks a handful of household-name male comics some of the questions she and other female comedians have been asked, but she flips the genders. Among the retooled questions: "When did you decide to become a male comedian?" and "Do you think men can be attractive and funny?"
In addition to stand-up, Friedman's work has included field-producing segments for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and helming Soft Focus with Jena Friedman, which she describes as a "feminist prank show." "I wish that I could say I've encountered fewer predators as I've advanced through the ranks of this industry, but that would be a lie," Friedman writes. "I now just have more power and agency to avoid them." For an injection of power and agency, readers could scarcely do better than Not Funny. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer