{"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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eLorna Landvik is the best-selling author of many novels, including \u003ci\u003ePatty Jane's House of Curl\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAngry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOh My Stars\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eMayor of the Universe \u003c\/i\u003e(Minnesota, 2014). She has performed stand-up and improvisational comedy around the country and is also a public speaker, playwright, and actor, most recently seen in an all-improvised, one-woman show \u003ci\u003eParty in the Rec Room.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50924629393682,"sku":"9780816698974","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_906f7f99-81ca-4398-9418-eee48dc1fb95.jpg?v=1738972496","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/best-to-laugh-9780816698974","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}