-
Access our Top 20
Books of 2024!
The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood's Hidden Genius
by Carrie Courogen
Miss May Does Not Exist, by Carrie Courogen is the riveting biography of comedian, director, actor and writer Elaine May, one of America's greatest comic geniuses. May began her career as one-half of the legendary comedy team known as Nichols and May, the duo that revolutionized the comedy sketch.
After performing their Broadway smash An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Elaine set out on her own. She toiled unsuccessfully on Broadway for a while, but then headed to Hollywood where she became the director of A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and the legendary Ishtar. She was hired as a script doctor on countless films like Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Tootsie, and The Birdcage. In 2019, she returned to Broadway where she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in The Waverly Gallery. Besides her considerable talent, May is well known for her reclusiveness. On one of the albums she made with Mike Nichols, her bio is this: "Miss May does not exist." Until now.
Carrie Courogen has uncovered the Elaine May who does exist. Conducting countless interviews, she has filled in the blanks May has forcibly kept blank for years, creating a fascinating portrait of the way women were mistreated and held back in Hollywood. Miss May Does Not Exist is a remarkable love story about a prickly genius who was never easy to work with, not always easy to love and frequently often punished for those things, despite revolutionizing the way we think about comedy, acting, and what a film or play can be.
"Courogen delivers a vibrant biography of filmmaker Elaine May...This is a gem." ―Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"The writing in this book is whip-smart and funny. It produces a fully realized portrait of a mysterious film genius." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Carrie Courogen has written the biography Elaine May deserves. Shimmering with insight and grounded in deep research, this book is as iconoclastic, engaging, and challenging as Miss May herself." ―Claire Dederer, author of Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma
"In Miss May Does Not Exist, Carrie Courogen pulls off quite the feat; she manages to capture, with nuance and wit, the life of a woman who is as hilarious as she is complex, as sparkling as she is serious, as ambitious as she is aloof. Courogen makes an undeniable case for May's permanent place in the cinematic canon as a major director and singular comedic talent; after reading this book, I will be saying 'justice for Ishtar!' to anyone who will listen." ―Rachel Syme, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
"Carrie Courogen has achieved the impossible: she has written the first (and very likely last) full-scale biography of Elaine May, the most beguiling, infuriating, thrilling, comedy genius ― and let's not use that word casually ― of the twentieth century, and she has done it splendidly, with admiration, welcome outrage, and scrupulous attention to detail. We all of us who have loved and wondered at this creature Elaine May owe Courogen our thanks, money, food ― whatever she wants ― for having written this book." ―Sam Wasson, New York Times bestselling author of The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood and Fosse
This information about Miss May Does Not Exist was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Carrie Courogen is a writer, editor, and director. Her work has appeared, in print and video, in publications like Glamour, NPR, Paper Magazine, Pitchfork, Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, Vice, and more. She lives in New York City.
.png)
Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
