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Title details for No Job for a Man by John Ross Bowie - Available

No Job for a Man

A Memoir

by John Ross Bowie
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A darkly witty, deeply affecting, and finely crafted memoir by the Big Bang Theory andSpeechless star and comedian, John Ross Bowie.
From his earliest memories of watching Rhoda with his parents in their tiny Hell's Kitchen apartment, John knew that he wanted to be an actor. The strange, alternate world of television—where people always cracked the perfect joke, lived in glamorous Upper East Side buildings, and made up immediately after fighting—seemed far better than his own home life, with a mother and father on the brink of divorce and a neighborhood full of crumbling pre-war architecture and not-so-occasional muggings. And yet that other world also seems unattainable. Besides crippling stage fright (which would take him years to overcome) John's father, ever aloof and cynical, has instilled within him the notion that acting is "no job for a man."

His father would impart that while theater, film, and television should be consumed and even debated, to create was no way to make a living or support a family. Putting aside his acting dreams, John stumbles through his twenties. He tries his hand at teaching and other traditional occupations, but nothing feels nearly as fulfilling as playing with his fleetingly on-the-map punk band, Egghead.

When he and his bandmates break up, John lands a joyless job copywriting for a consulting agency and slips into a dark depression. He loses weight, begins drinking heavily, and his relationships flounder.

But everything changes when John discovers improv (and anti-depressants). As a part of New York's now-famous Upright Citizens Brigade, John not only explores his passion for acting and comedy—and begins to envision himself doing so professionally—he also meets his future wife and fellow actor, Jamie Denbo.

No Job for a Man follows the couple as they relocate to Los Angeles and try to make it in the arts, meeting success and failure, wins and losses, despair and hope along the way. Though his father chronically refuses to acknowledge pride in his adult son's accomplishments, John comes to realize what being a man truly means.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 1, 2022

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781639362479

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781639362479
      • File size: 10737 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 29, 2022
      Actor and musician Bowie (The Big Bang Theory) meanders his way from the East Village punk scene to Hollywood in this smart, pithy memoir with an earnest emotional arc. Growing up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in the 1970s and ’80s, Bowie was surrounded by the brutality of the AIDS epidemic and the vitality of the theater district (“We were gifted and cursed. Our metropolis offered us everything without caring whether we survived”). This recurring contrast—bleak and grotesque collide with redeeming beauty—keeps Bowie’s free-flowing narrative grounded. When his parents split up, he channeled angry energy into punk rock; his band Egghead played CBGB. After the inevitable band breakup, he found nighttime creative refuge at the Upright Citizens Brigade—which led to L.A., up-and-down TV work, and meeting his wife, actor Jamie Denbo. Bowie employs a light touch while recounting love and family relationships that spark and fade through choice conversational snippets and anecdotes, culminating in a poignant climactic encounter with his brusque father, who softened while in hospice. Brutally hungover, awaiting the birth of his child and the death of his father, he concludes: “Joy and excretion and grief.... This is life.” This one’s like a worn-in band T-shirt at a wrap party: sardonic yet soft. Agent: Todd Schuster, Aevitas Creative Management.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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