HEEEEERRRRRRRRRRE'S......HUGO??.......STAYING UP WITH "STAY UP WITH HUGO BEST"

Stay Up With Hugo Best by Erin Somers (2019)    I wish I could say I liked this book as much as the authors who wrote glowing blurbs for its back cover.........

                  Not even close.

                  Comedic?  Nope. A martini-dry wit does run through the length of this thing..........but never enough to even make me crack a smile.

                   Ultimately, it finishes up as a sad, sad observation of that well-worn showbiz tale........how desperate, hungry ambition leads to a life of bitter regret, dreams unfulfilled and loves lost........

                   So I don't know how or why the blurb-a-holics found any of this funny.......it's like 'Citizen Kane' for stand-up comics.......complete with its own Xanadu.

                   Hugo Best is the author's goulash mixmaster blending of Letterman, Leno, Carson, and few others........with a dash of Lenny Bruce to add some flavor. He's a late-night TV talk show host-comedian who's just been kicked off the air cause he's old, tired and way past his expiration date.

                  For a weekend bash at his plush Connecticut estate, he invites one of his underlings, June Bloom  a former network page who toiled as an assistant to his writers' staff.

                  June, an under-employed and now freshly unemployed millennial who struggles as a fledgling stand-up comedienne.  accepts the invitation.........somewhere in the back of her mind thinking Hugo might offer a career boost...….along with inevitable sex.......

                   What follows isn't funny........a nasty, lifestyles of the rich and infamous weekend.  And it's capped off by Hugo's ill-fated attempt to throw an end-of-show catered bash.......

                   In her favor, Erin Somers' prose is dense with laser sharp observations of people driven by success but who find little joy in it.   Not good: her labored tries at simulating  actual stand up comedy......it reeks of creative-writing-class overreaching.

                   If nothing else, the book provides a fairly accurate explanation of why some of the world's most beloved comedians are in fact, miserable, angry, resentful human beings.

                  Sorry, I didn't need another literary fictioneer to clue me in on the asshole-ness of the guys who made me laugh......been there, seen that.

                   Pay no attention to the blurbs on the books.........maybe those folks watched Kimmel while reading and got the book and TV mixed up. 1 & 1/2 stars.....(* 1/2)    Pick  it up only if simply must read anything with a show-bizzy vibe........