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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Grace Kessler Overbeke, "First Lady of Laughs: The Forgotten Story of Jean Carroll" (NYU Press, 2024)
Description: Before Hacks and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, there was the comedienne who started it all.
First Lady of Laughs: The Forgotten Story of Jean Carroll (NYU Press, 2024) tells the story of Jean Carroll, the first Jewish woman to become a star in the field we now call stand-up comedy. Though rarely mentioned among the pantheon of early stand-up comics such as Henny Youngman and Lenny Bruce, Jean Carroll rivaled or even outshone the male counterparts of her heyday, playing more major theaters than any other comedian of her period. In addition to releasing a hit comedy album, Girl i...