The Joker: A Memoir
Why don’t elephants like to wear black lace panties? young Hudgins would ask his classmates. They wouldn’t know. His comeback, Who says they don’t like black lace panties? earned him laughter, so joking became the unathletic army brat’s way of dealing with other kids, becoming a lifelong habit and the subject of this singular and not always funny book. The analysis of bad jokes (the above is an innocuous example), the connective tissue of this gag-ridden memoir, is a perilous pastime, and Hudgins’ overall success at it is remarkable. Reflecting on childish, occasionally vulgar or nasty jokes, and on their tellers, Hudgins is thoughtful and personally forthright. The book ranges from his childish pleasure in dead-baby and Helen Keller jokes to adult observations on the implications of humor concerning sex, religion, and race (in the mid-century South where he was raised). Hudgins, an acclaimed poet, has an acute ear and is sensitive to the porcelain delicacy of words, as well as to their bite. Despite the unfortunate requirement to retell the dreadful jokes (and there are few others), Hudgins’ commentary is a great deal more subtle and the better reason to pick up this unique book. --Mark Levine