Michael Griffith’s latest novel captures the last twenty minutes of a man’s life: Vada finishes mowing the lawn, eats cookie dough for lunch, and suffocates under the weight of his friend Wyatt’s stuffed trophy bear. It’s a joke wrapped in a pun inside a pratfall, but this book gives good pathos, too.

Recently we discussed a Times article about why comic novels often get overlooked when it comes to literary awards. Over at BlackBook, author and Columbia professor Sam Lipsyte adds his thoughts on the status of funny fiction today:

Do you feel that literary fiction is afraid to make people laugh these days?
I think there’s a [...]

In the art world, comedy seldom gets its dues: if it’s funny, many assume, it can’t also be “real” art. At the Oscars a couple of years back, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly lamented the plight of “A Comedian at the Oscars”: “the saddest man of all / Your movies may [...]