Hail, Hail, Euphoria!: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, the Greatest War Movie Ever Made

Description

Bestselling author Roy Blount Jr. tells the story of theclassic Marx Brothers wartime satire Duck Soup. As always, Blount isinformed yet informal, tongue-in-cheek yet tempered, providing the perfectvoice to recount the irreverent antics of Harpo, Chico, Groucho, and Zeppo. Readers of HarpoSpeaks, The Essential Groucho,and Monkey Business and fans of Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera and the Marx Brothers' other timelesscomedies-as well as all fans of Blount's witty and insightful books like Alphabet Juice and Feet on the Street and listeners to NPR's weekly news quiz, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me-will becaptivated by the lyrical humorist's compelling, behind-the-scenes storytellingof the 1933 classic film.

Roy Blount Jr. wears many hats: he is a humorist, sportswriter, poet, performer, lecturer, dramatist, and the author of twelve books. Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Blount received a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt and a master's degree from Harvard. After a brief stint in the Army he worked as a reporter, columnist, and part-time English instructor in Atlanta before becoming a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated, and later a contributing editor to The Atlantic. Blount's writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, GQ, Rolling Stone, and National Geographic. His work has also been anthologized in such collections as The Best of Modern Humor, The Elvis Reader, The Ultimate Baseball Book, and The Sophisticated Cat. He is the author of seventeen books, including Crackers (1982), About Three Bricks Shy of a Load (1986), Soupsongs & Webster's Ark (1988), Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard (1991), First Hubby (1991), Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor (1994), which contains overs 150 short stories, sketches, essays, poems, memoirs, and lyrics, Be Sweet: A Memoir (1998), Robert E. Lee (2003), and several books cowritten with Valerie Shaff. Blount currently lives in western Massachusetts and New York City.

"Hail, Hail, Euphoria! is the most lyrical, insightful, scholarly, illuminating and celebratory 144 pages I've ever sat down with. This book is a stream of fun." -- Wall Street Journal "Roy Blount Jr. knows from humor. In [Hail, Hail, Euphoria!], he sets out to remedy the lack of a scene-by-scene commentary on the Marx Brothers' greatest movie, the sublimely nonsensical Duck Soup." -- Washington Post "An essential read for Marx Brothers fans, those curious about the melding of war and humor in film, and browsers looking for a good read." -- Library Journal "Readers will enjoy the stories behind this iconic film and the careers of the Marx Brothers." -- Booklist "Roy Blount Jr. deconstructs the Marx Brothers' magic." -- Los Angeles Times