The Joker, Andrew Hudgins
The Joker, Andrew Hudgins
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The Joker
A Memoir

Author: Andrew Hudgins

Narrator: Jeff Cummings

Unabridged: 11 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/11/2013

Synopsis

Since Andrew Hudgins was a child, he was a compulsive joke teller, so when he sat down to write about jokes, he found that he was writing about himself—what jokes taught him and mistaught him, how they often delighted him but occasionally made him nervous with their delight in chaos and sometimes anger. Because Hudgins’s father, a West Point graduate, served in the US Air Force, his family moved frequently; he learned to relate to other kids by telling jokes and watching how his classmates responded. And jokes opened him up to the serious, taboo subjects that his family didn’t talk about openly—religion, race, sex, and death. Hudgins tells and analyzes the jokes that explore the contradictions in the Baptist religion he was brought up in, the jokes that told him what his parents would not tell him about sex, and the racist jokes that his uncle loved, his father hated, and his mother, caught in the middle, was ambivalent about. This audiobook is both a memoir and a meditation on jokes and how they educated, delighted, and occasionally horrified him as he grew.

About Andrew Hudgins

Andrew Hudgins was born a military brat in Fort Hood, Texas, in 1951, moving to New Mexico, Ohio, and England before elementary school in North Carolina and California. His family lived for one year outside Paris before his father was transferred to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1966, the year after the Selma-to-Montgomery march. He has attended Huntingdon College, the University of Alabama, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Stanford University. His poetry, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. His family lives in Columbus, Ohio, where Hudgins teaches at The Ohio State University, and in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Juliana on July 16, 2013

This is one of the smartest books I've read this year. Hudgins doesn't simply recount his life story; rather, he structures his memoir around the evolution of his sense of humor, his love of jokes, and the subject matter (religion, race, and sex) that he heard most often and was most affected by as......more

Goodreads review by Brandon on May 26, 2013

The Joker is an interesting read about the life of Andrew and his need for laughter and jokes. Most of the book is about his life growing up and his need to understand words, and later on jokes. A majority of the jokes are racist or deal with sex, so if you are expecting a book about clean jokes, th......more

Goodreads review by John on April 10, 2017

Absolutely one of the best books I have ever read about jokes and humor. The author is a distinguished poet and this book is kinda an account of his relationship with jokes, very unique approach. Very sophisticated and nuanced analysis of jokes, and there are some great jokes here! This book is an a......more

Goodreads review by Ashley on August 13, 2014

First, I have to apologize for my lack of blog post. I know that its been long anticipated, and I appreciate your patience with me. Again, I apologize. The reason for my lack of blog post is because, honestly, well, I have been stuck on this memoir for review. I am not one of those people that can re......more

Goodreads review by Diane on June 16, 2013

I have never been a joke-teller, other than elephant or knock-knock jokes, but loved the television shows of Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Jack Benny, Robin Williams, the appearances of Jonathan Winters and many of the Saturday Night Live skits. I never saw the humor in......more

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