Obscenity trials, taboo-breaking routines and free-speech battles dominate the books associated with Lenny Bruce. How to Talk Dirty and Influence People is a memoir assembled around childhood, military service, comedy clubs, arrests and courtroom battles, with Bruce’s rapid associations and argumentative humour shaping the prose. Collections of routines and trial material show how much his work depended on improvisation, repetition and testing the limits of what could be said publicly. The books are historically specific and can be abrasive, but they document a major shift towards confessional and politically confrontational stand-up. For discovery, the work connects most naturally with comedy history, free-speech nonfiction, counterculture and performance memoir. Read more Less
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