Rating: 
Summary: The Best Andy Kaufman book
Review: I read both the Zehme and Zmuda books. I did know Andy, as we both started at the Improv about the same time. "Lost In The Funhouse" is everything the "Man In The Moon" movie is not... a trip deep into the mind of a most unique and creative genius. Forget the other book- Andy can't defend himself.
Rating:
Summary: Lost in the Funhouse Does Andy Proud
Review: I never really cared much about Andy Kaufman until I read Lost in the Funhouse over the holiday weekend. Some friends of mine, diehard Andy mavens, recommended it, and I'm glad they did. In a nutshell, Wow! In fact, I'm about to embark on a second reading, and that doesn't happen often. But once was just not enough to fully absorb and appreciate all the fascinating detail and nuance author Bill Zehme has injected into this thoroughly entertaining, though very tragic, tale of the real-life Boy Who Cried Wolf.The interplay of voices and brilliant, often dizzying prose carries shades of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, another inventive novel that intrigued and affected me deeply from the start--and even more so after a second perusal. That's not to say that Funhouse requires two readings, though, because it doesn't. But when a book is this good, you don't want it to end, and so I guess a second time around is one way of sustaining my enjoyment and delaying the inevitable postpartum funk. The vast majority of readers, Kaufman fans or not, will love this book. But even if they don't, that's just as well. Andy would have wanted it that way. Now that I know more about him, I'm certain Andy would have hated to see his life story receive wimpy, lukewarm responses, because those kind aren't from the gut. And Andy's performance art was all about the gut, even if it meant rubbing people the wrong way and getting booed off the stage. Then again, he was equally thrilled by a standing ovation. Except for his stint on Taxi, a job Andy apparently despised, his was a world devoid of "jokes" and self-affirming laughter, something most comics thrive on. But Andy wasn't a "comic" in the truest sense (he fancied himself a "song-and-dance man"), and thus couldn't have cared less whether he got laughs or jeers. One was just as good as the other. In light of that, he was, it seems, the most intrepid, invincible performer who ever walked the earth. Zehme's book illustrates this unique quality and many others not only factually, but stylistically and emotionally. By marshaling illuminating detail, interspersing myriad voices, including the subject's own, and crawling under Andy's thick skin, Zehme has broken new ground and created something quite remarkable here. I now realize that there is absolutely no way to effectively encapsulate the life and mind of Andy Kaufman with so-called "normal" prose. Only by literally and figuratively entering his roller- coaster world and his often bizarre and troubled psyche can one even begin to understand him. And since most of us have neither the inclination nor the ability nor the courage to take such a plunge, we're lucky to have someone who's done it for us. And masterfully, I might add. Mr. Zehme, you took a chance and did Andy and literature proud. Congrats and, on behalf of the man himself, tenk you veddy much!
Rating:
Summary: The Real Andy No Really
Review: It's funny that Andy espoused a Friendly Friendly World and that there can be such mean-spirited consumers of his wide-eyed legacy. I know well many people who knew Andy as closely as anyone could have known him. These people have been raving about this book--and only this book; they are stunned that the author achieved Andy's voice on the page, they are stunned that the puzzle that was his life has been so metticulously pieced together. So I eagerly read it and was equally stunned--it's a breathtaking ride. Like a fine dizzying novel fortified by every manner of fact. (What's the beef about no sources--this book explodes with sources galore--anyone check out the acknowledgements? Plus we see every significant interview Andy ever did explored from new angles. It's all right there.) I have read Zehme's funny magazine profiles for years and can fully understand why he took six years here sorting through material no one else had privvy to. Whereas the Zmuda book is a factual mess, much like Man On The Moon--for a guy who claimed to be the Best Friend, he didn't seem to be paying much attention while he lived in Andy's orbit. (He claims to have played Clifton countless times on various talk shows; in truth he was Clifton thrice--twice on Merv, once on Dave. He claims and claims all kinds of grandiose things that are elegantly invariably refuted in the Zehme book. Is anyone else out there reading closely here? Zmuda, to his credit, made a career of sorts on his great ability to lie a lot--which thrilled Andy of course. But that gift is a cheat in the realm of letters.) This book--just like Andy--is unlike anything we have ever seen in biographies. It takes leaps that Andy would have been so proud of. Which is what his true intimates all seem to be saying. This is simply the real thing, a tribute of the highest order. If you were willing to accept the challenges Andy threw at all of us, you should just embrace this book--and treasure it. You'll laugh and cry but most of all get closer to knowing how this life was lived.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry not good
Review: The writer attempts to be Kaufmanesque thoughout the story and it suffers for it. I'll bet you can't get through it! He's a gifted author but this one isn't one of his best.
Rating:
Summary: A journey into the mind of Andy Kaufman
Review: Lost in the Funhouse is one of the most interesting biographies that I have ever read. The subtitle could not be more correct. Sure, the writing style is unorthodox, but since when was anything related to Andy Kaufman orthodox? This book takes you into the workings of a mind that was both complex and bizarre and the stylistic freedoms that Bill Zehme takes only help the reader understand the schizophrenic extremes that Kaufman's mind would go to. Andy's life is one that has left people guessing about the details. Mr. Zehme's book begins to help the reader find some answers. Maybe. His extensive research shows throughout while not becoming too overbearing. Do I now know who Andy Kaufman was because of reading this book? No. Do I better understand why he did what he did and what drove him to do them? Yes. That's all that we can realistically ask from a book about one who played with reality as if it were silly putty.
Rating: 
Summary: An unusual subject, an unusual approach--it works
Review: OK, so the I'm-channeling-Andy writing style is a bit off-putting (especially in the early chapters where Zehme is channeling Andy as a child) but after a while this unorthodox approach comes to seem quite natural and appropriate. Sometimes distracting, deliberately repetitive, it is also frequently eloquent. Certainly preferable to the pedestrian hackwork I was worried that this book might be (this guy wrote a book about Regis? uh-oh, not a good sign). I think the book also gives a very fair portrayal of Andy, with whom you always had to take the good with the bad (usually in extreme doses). No agenda for canonization or condemnation here--just a sense that Andy's strangeness was both stranger and more calculated than I had ever thought. And in the end it's quite moving. A completely absorbing book.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating subject - horrible writing
Review: Irritating. Irritating. Irritating. After all the whining about Bob Zmuda's recent book, netjunkies awaited this book and twitched nervously. Well, the wait is over and sadly, this is faaaar worse than Zmuda's amusing though brag-filled tome. Bill, Bill, Bill... did you actually think this was clever writing? What the hell kind of an "exhaustive biography" doesn't have an index, footnotes, or a single reference? He quotes yet doesn't bother to mention where the heck he's quoting from. The abrupt stylistic shifts are annoying rather than avant garde. And if I hear one more comment about what a "great" and "respected" writer this man is, i'm going to start pounding roofing nails into my brain. I mean, c'mon... this clown ghosted books for freakin' REGIS and LENO. Not exactly good homework for tackling the prickly mind of a comedy genius. So very irritating... Can't someone hurry up and publish Kaufman's own novels so we don't need to savor the tiny excerpts in this horrific pile of "People Magazine" 3rd grade book reportish scholarship? Oh, and take a look at that picture of the author. SNICKER! What a pompous little pose. Poor Zehme. Maybe you should've gone to college after all. INDEX, Bill. INDEX. FOOTNOTES. Repeat after me: credit your sources. Thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: Put a fork in Andy, he's done.
Review: After reading the first bio (Zmuda's) and now this one, I was hoping Lost in the Funhouse would be the more focused and complete of the two works. Not so. The writing here is just as annoying as the Zmuda's book is self-centered. I came to the conclusion that maybe there isn't enough story here to fill two books. After Carrey's film, this should just about satisfy any curiousity I had about Andy's work. By then Andy's legacy will have been picked clean by those who claim to be honoring him.
Rating:
Summary: Andy Kaufman would have loved this book.
Review: Most of America only knew Andy Kaufman from Taxi, where he played Latka, a version of Foreign Man. But everyone comedian, plus anyone in show business who knew the score, understood that Kaufman was the real thing--an artist who went where few dared. Bill Zehme's mind-bending biography of Kaufman is also the real thing; so real in fact that reading it is like inhabiting Kaufman's mind. It's strange in there, and Zehme roots around in the maze brilliantly. The prose is occasionally warped, but that -- and access to Kaufman's diaries and the cooperation of his family -- is what gives the book such a powerful veracity. You know, maybe Zehme is just fronting for Kaufman. Maybe Andy IS alive and wrote it himself. He could have ....
Rating:
Summary: Good try but reads too pretentiously
Review: I was quite excited to buy and read this book; I think Andy Kaufman is one of the comic geniuses of our time and there has always been so much unexplained about him. The author obviously shares that affection, and not just because he spent 6 years on the book. But the first half is really boring and is filled with unverifiable "facts," and by the end I felt like I knew 10 times more about Bill Zehme than Andy Kaufman. It felt like he'd put Andy on a slide under a microscope, and when what he saw was still fuzzy, decided to fill up his book with a novel about him and Andy Kaufman. Though I'm sure he didn't mean to, the effect rang really pretentious, like he was either trying to pull a fast on the reader because he didn't have enough material, or that he thought he was Norman Mailer. I wish he was too--or at least a reporter who would say like on "Dragnet," "just the facts,ma'am."
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