Sign-In
Cart
Jackie Jester
Paperback
Publisher: BearManor Media
Published: Feb 2 2025
Pages: 284
Weight: 0.84
Height: 0.60 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The story of a fascinating musical career fraught with the most miserable lows, a few enormous highs, a touch of anger, a lot of humor-and a couple of perplexing crossroads.
As a teenager in depression-era lower Manhattan, Jack Aronson makes a name for himself writing songs with titles like One Big Pile of Ship and If You See Kay. Their popularity helps him decide to devote his life to making novelty records. Even before he turns 20, Jack becomes the comic yet troubled driving force behind Jester Records. His first hit record, Izzy (Who Gives Me a Smile), leads to a hookup with a shady character who takes over the company. That's when Jack starts to lose his own smile.
Jack's professional journey includes infuriating conferences with record company executives, endless inspirations, chance meetings with the likes of Harpo Marx and Frank Sinatra, and a couple of decisions that may alter the course of his family's future.
A funny, flavorful, touching novel of an unusual New York family with the backdrop of novelty songs, corporate intrigue, and knishes. Samberg has captured the ambiance of the Lower East Side in an era when anything seemed possible for a mensch who wouldn't let setbacks and betrayals rob him of his dream.
-David J. Weiner, music writer, historian, and producer
As a psychoanalyst with 55 years of experience, I found Jackie Jester both a mirror of some difficult times in this county and a modern reiteration of Ibsen's iconic play, Ghosts. It deftly illuminates how one's choice to deny the essential facts of one's life can result in a life-altering event.
-Gibbs Williams, psychoanalyst and author.
1 different editions
Also available
Also from
Samberg, Joel
Also in
General Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968-August 1968
Johnson, Uwe
Paperback
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose, and Diary Excerpts
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback
Selected Writings: Robert Musil: Young Torless, Three Women, the Perfecting of a Love, and Other Writings
Musil, Robert
Agee, Joel
Paperback
Before Gatsby: The First Twenty-Six Stories
Baughman, Judith
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Bruccoli, Matthew J.
Paperback