{"product_id":"best-to-laugh-9780816698974","title":"Best to Laugh","description":"\u003cp\u003eNo one steps up to life's banquet, holds out her tray, and orders, \"Grief, please \" But as a child, Candy Pekkala was served a heaping helping of it. Every buffet line has a dessert section, however, and when a cousin calls with a Hollywood apartment to sublet, it seems as though Candy is finally offered something sweet. It's good-bye to Minnesota and hello to California, where a girl who has always lived by her wits has a real chance of making a living with them. With that, the irrepressible Lorna Landvik launches her latest irresistible character onto the world stage--or at least onto the dimly lit small stage where stand-up comedy gets its start.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHerself a comic performer, Landvik taps her own adventurous past and Minnesota roots to conjure Candy's life in this strange new Technicolor home. Her fellow tenants at Peyton Hall include a female bodybuilder, a ruined nightclub impresario, and a well-connected Romanian fortune-teller. There are game show appearances and temp jobs at a record company and an establishment suspiciously like the Playboy Mansion, and of course the alluring but not always welcoming stage of stand-up comedy. As she hones her act, Candy is tested by humiliation, hecklers, and the inherent sexism that insists \"chicks aren't funny.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten with the light touch and quiet wisdom that have made her works so popular, this is classic Lorna Landvik--sometimes so funny, you'll cry; sometimes so sad, you might as well laugh; and always impossible to put down. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Minnesota Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/01\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780816698974\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 312\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.88lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.56h x 5.75w x 0.88d","brand":"Lorna Landvik","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42917049696437,"sku":"9780816698974","price":14.41,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_453db8a8-2281-402b-aeb2-6f188b4d5195.jpg?v=1687276276","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/best-to-laugh-9780816698974","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}