These Foolish Things

From the legendary New Yorker theater critic and Tony Award winner, a moving memoir about American theater’s golden age. In These Foolish Things, the acclaimed author and seminal drama critic of the New Yorker for more than twenty years captures the events and people who informed his life, each chapter inspired by an object that connects to his past. Son of famed comedian Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, Lahr assembles a droll and insightful mosaic of growing up in a show business family; his apprenticeship in the 1960s underground press; and his time at the New Yorker, where he has published nearly a million words. Called “one of the greatest biographers writing today” (Observer), Lahr gives a penetrating account of his struggles to bring the stories of Joe Orton, Dame Edna Everage, Bill Hicks, Elaine Stritch, and Tennessee Williams into print. The capstone to a revered career, These Foolish Things is a delightful, unconventional self-portrait from the major American drama critic of his time.