Barry Friedman, a veteran of 30 years on the comedy road, delivers another punchline on standup. Filled with garden-variety kleptomaniacs, large, rum-drinking Bahamians, bitter, glorious, troubled, and sex-addicted women with ankle monitors, loquacious drug addicts, first-time Vegas lesbians, and tall, neurotic Jews in sweaters- and these are the sane people-The Joke Was On Me is the story, his story, of laughs and love and almost fame. It's all true-as much as comedy will allow anyway.


"You can't go on the road with standup comedian Barry Friedman, which is probably good for your health and sanity. But you can feel what it felt like, through this funny, gritty, wondrously detailed, and scarily honest book."

Dave Barry

"Barry writes so beautifully he actually made me miss shitty one nighters. Thanks A LOT Barry."

Carole Montgomery, Host of Funny Women of a Certain Age

"He's written a book with all the wisdom and humanity of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, but with way better jokes and twice as many clitoral piercings."

John H. Richardson

"I can neither confirm nor deny that I laughed out loud instead of clutching my pearls while reading the racy bits in Barry Friedman's new book, The Joke Was on Me. Confessions aside, seeing the broken yet still beautiful world through his eyes is cathartic."

Jennifer Taub, author of Big Dirty Money