I've never read a book with two exclamation points in its title before!! ...Nor a biography with a picture of the subject portrayed in death on the cover. There's something a little sensationalistic about this book.
I'm not even all that interested in Lenny Bruce although I do like to listen to his records, not so much for the content but for the incantatory rhythms of his delivery. What I do like about this book is the way it describes the USA of the 1950s and early '60s focused through the magnifying lens of one of its sharpest critics.
In a way this makes me think of a tourist photograph where whoever is in the foreground is less interesting than what's going on behind them. I didn't expect to get caught up in this but it's held my attention for 300 pages so far. Goldman sometimes gets a little too caught up in the momentum of his prose but for the most part it's an exhilarating read with plenty of sex, drugs, and jazz to hold one's prurient interest.
Although Bruce himself doesn't come off in not the most flattering light as a person (a junkie who collaborated with the same narcs he criticized), the atmosphere of conformity, repression, and paranoia which is the fabric of the society described reminds this jaded shock-proof reader how revolutionary Lenny Bruce's accomplishments really were--burning holes in that fabric like so much casually dropped cigarette ash.
Get the hardcover dirt cheap at amazon.com. It has cool tiled end papers comprised of Lenny's mugshot.
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