ARE YOU KIDDING ME? BLACK HUMOUR IN THE WORK OF JOSEPH HELLER, STANLEY ELKIN, WALLACE MARKFIELD AND BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN

• Published in: The Edinburgh Companion to Modern Jewish Fiction p. 53
• Main Author: David Gooblar
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 07.06.2015
• Subjects: Animal anatomy; Animal physiology; Animal reproduction; Anthologies; Artists; Arts; Behavioral sciences; Biological sciences; Biology; Communications; Communicative content; Comparative literature; Death; Developmental biology; Economic disciplines; Economics; Employment; Entertainment; Fiction; Humor; Information resources; Information science; Jewish literature; Jokes; Kidding; Labor economics; Leisure studies; Life cycle; Literary criticism; Literary genres; Literary studies; Literature; Novels; Occupations; Parturition; Recreation; Social sciences; Writers; Zoology
• ISBN: 0748646159; 9780748646159

‘It’ is called “black humor” and I think I would have more luck defining an elbow or a corned-beef sandwich’ (Friedman 1965: vii). So Bruce Jay Friedman begins his foreword to the 1965 anthology he edited for Bantam Books, entitledBlack Humor. Indeed, Friedman does not try to define the concept so much as sketch the cultural conditions that allowed black humour – whatever it is – to emerge as one of the most discussed literary modes of mid-1960s American letters. ‘[T]he source and fountain and bible of black humor’, according to Friedman, isThe New York Times, whose headlines