Tickled Pink
A Comic Novel
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Mindy Solomon absolutely has to leave Miami. Florida is bad for her head and her hair. She dreams of a dancing career on Broadway and moves to New York, but after a string of failures and mishaps, she realizes that she needs to rethink her grand plan. Finding herself spending way too much time in the comedy club where her future ex-boyfriend works, she nervously goes up onstage one night. People laugh. Not in the places where Mindy thought they'd laugh, but hey, it's a start.
Mindy and her friend Ursula Duran, a man-magnet model-slash-actress-slash-deeply troubled woman, soon embark on a wild ride that ricochets from New York's East Side Hotel for Women to the comedy circuit, auditions, photo shoots, film premieres, cable TV specials, Hollywood studios, late-night TV talk shows, and beyond. Surrounded by sleazy agents, sleazier lovers, and Ursula's even sleazier mother, the two find that life writes a few punch lines they weren't expecting...but through it all, they somehow manage to have the last laugh.
Rita Rudner has crafted a debut novel that is not just funny, but moving and insightful. With its insider's viewpoint of the world of stand-up comedy, Tickled Pink is also, at its core, a touching tale of love, loss, female friendship, and forgiveness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Comedian Rudner serves up a genial showbiz souffl in her debut novel. Mindy Solomon, the star of what many will perceive to be a semiautobiographical story, is a young dancer from Florida who packs her bags to head for the bright lights of New York City in 1980. Once installed in a seedy women's hotel, she meets a gorgeous, blonde aspiring model named Ursula. They become fast friends, and each sets out to pursue her dream. When an accident prematurely ends Mindy's dancing career, she is drawn to the world of stand-up comedy and begins to hone an act, teaming up with veteran writer and funnywoman Penelope. Ursula's career skyrockets (despite constant meddling from her troubled mother, Eva, a former beauty herself), while Mindy struggles for success. After a break on the Letterman show, it seems that everything is finally coming together, with a chance for a starring role on a sitcom but when the part goes to Ursula instead, Mindy is devastated. Chucking her friends and moving back in with her father in Florida, she tries to regain her sense of humor and find herself. There's more, of course births, marriages, divorce, disasters, three-hanky reunions and a neat fairy tale wrap-up. What Rudner sacrifices in originality she gains with her famous one-liners larded throughout; the tidbits on the process of comedy thinking and writing, while too few, offer insights into the evolution of an act. Brisk, breezy and chock-full of cartoonish but lovable characters, this fable of fame offers a read as agreeable as the first whiffs of autumn air.
