Billy Crystal

The nice thing about reading a memoir of a public figure is that you can hear their voice as you read it, and this book is so completely Billy Crystal that you feel like you're sitting in the theater listening to him (which isn't a surprise, since this was originally a stage show). I loved everything about this book, but most of all, I loved how it wasn't about him, but his family and how important they are to him. A great, fast read.

Incredibly emotional book by Crystal as he details his life before his father died from a cardiac arrest. He speaks about the heavy burden placed on his shoulders at various points in his life and how he tried to deal with the grieving process by means of comedy or sports. Part homage to his mother’s interior strength and part celebration of his father’s desire to preserve Jazz recording artists and their art form, Crystal steps out from the Hollywood good guy persona to reveal some of show more his doubts and insecurities. I was not expecting such a powerful book. It is based on a stage production but if I had seen it performed live I would have taken it in as a “based on my life” performance and not so autobiographical. I’m really glad I experienced this in literary form. Crystal has shown himself to be a masterful distiller of memory, hurts, sense of abandonment by God, and recognition of life’s small triumphs. Americana topics include the Vietnam War draft, The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit. Illustrations are taken from Crystal’s own family photos. show less

I liked this book much more than I expected to. It was downright funny at time, pulled on the heart strings at others and left me feeling like this was a man who really loves his family.

Outside of this book, I really no nothing about his upbringing, his family, his delve into celebrity fame. What I love about his story, is that he focused on all the people who shaped him into who he became and not on the ins and outs of A-List Hollywood [as most celebrity memoirs tend to be..].

His uncle show more became the first person in the record industry to develop mail order catalogues, they brought jazz into the city, brought musicians together who never would've played in the same venue due to race. His family was the sole reason that Billie Holiday's, harrowing song about the lynching of black people in the South, was ever recorded. (Listen to it here!

What touched me the most, was the tenderness he spoke about his Mother and Father. He had rougly 700 Sundays to spend with his Father before his untimely death in the 1960s. He was 15 years old. By those calculations, I got to have about 936 Sundays with my Father before we lost him. It's funny how I would trade all 900 of those Sundays in exchange for just one more with him.

A short, sweet, funny novel that made me really have a new respect and liking of Billy Crystal. show less

This is a little book that packs an enormous punch and will make you laugh until you cry. And then it will just make you cry. Crystal lost his father at fifteen, but Jack Crystal was his first fan, and an enormously important influence. Crystal's descriptions of his grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives are just perfect. When he described his grandfather's deafness and chronic flatulence I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. When he tells of his father's sudden death of a heart show more attack the night after he and Billy had had a rare argument, I nearly wept for the young boy that Crystal was at the time. This is writing of the most honest and heartfelt kind. It only took me a few hours to read this book. I absolutely loved it. show less