Welcome to my website. I am a former writer, editor and critic for TIME Magazine and the author of three books: Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America; Hope: Entertainer of the Century; and Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show. Read more about my books; see some of my recent articles for the Washington Post and other publications; and check out my blog, Critic Unbound.

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Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show (Simon & Schuster, 2019). A chronicle of Elvis Presley’s 1969 comeback show in Las Vegas, set against the backdrop of Vegas’s 1960s golden age of entertainment.Read more.

 

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Hope: Entertainer of the Century (Simon & Schuster, 2014). The critically acclaimed biography of America’s favorite comic, the only star to achieve top-rated success in every major mass-entertainment medium of the century. Read more.

 

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 Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America (Bloomsbury, 2008). The definitive history of that seminal era in stand-up comedy. Read more.

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