Stern by Bruce Jay Friedman (RB472)

Published 1963: First Paperback Edition / Softcover / Good Condition

Original pictorial stiff card covers. 159 clean pages. Covers are rubbed with time and frayed along the edges consistent with age but remain intact. (RB472)

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Well before Philip Roth in Portnoy's Complaint turned the special predicament of the American Jew into a long psychiatric joke, Friedman told the original story and got the first laugh. Stern is the story of a Jewish family displaced from the city to the suburbs, and more particularly, of the mild-mannered Every'man of the title, under siege in his new home, set upon by voracious caterpillars as well as shades of bigotry that range from the genteel snub to outright anti-Semitism. With masterly procrastination, Stern sets out to avenge one such incident at the hands of a beer-drinking neighbor.

Balefully funny, darkly antic, the genius of Bruce Jay Friedman lies in weaving a light but durable web of laughter over the abyss of contemporary American life. Originally published in 1962, Stern is a high comedy of enduring relevance.

Bruce Jay Friedman published his first short story in The New Yorker in 1953 when he was 23. He went on to hold the record for most short stories published in Esquire during its golden age. Many of his tightly packed early stories contain a science fiction element with twist endings.

From Stern being the first “Freudian” novel, to the first appearance of the Jewish Mother, in A Mother’s Kisses, Friedman also created the trope of the Jewish schlemiel. A byproduct of his 1967 hit, Scuba Duba, was the first use of “obscenity” and nudity on the New York stage. Likewise, his 1970 hit play, Steambath, (where God materializes as a Puerto Rican steambath attendant), became a TV sensation several years later, ushering the first nudity on national TV.

Friedman edited the anthology Black Humor in 1965, coining a term that Time magazine christened a literary movement. But he never used the term Black Humor again. Through the 1950s and early 60s, he edited four men’s adventure magazines, mentoring a hard-typing fraternity of war and adventure writers at Magazine Management (epitomized by Mario Puzo).

Screenplays written by Bruce Jay Friedman include Splash and Stir Crazy. Others, like The Heartbreak Kid (original film) and The Lonely Guy were based on his work.

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