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Start giftingBowl of Cherries
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreKicked out of Yale at age fourteen, the precocious Judd Breslau takes a questionable job from the eccentric Phillips Chatterton, a bathrobe-wearing Egyptologist working out of a dilapidated home laboratory. There, Judd falls for young Valerie Chatterton, who quickly leads Breslau away from his research and into, in order: the attic, a Colorado equestrian ranch, a porn studio beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and a jail cell in southern Iraq, where we find him awaiting his own execution while the war rages on in the north.
Written by a ninety-year-old debut novelist, ex-Marine, two-time Oscar nominee, and co-creator of Mr. Magoo, Bowl of Cherries rivals the liveliest comic novels for sheer gleeful inventiveness. This is a book of astounding breadth and sharp consequence, containing all the joy, derangement, terror, and doubt of adolescence and modern times.
Millard Kaufman (1917–2009) plunged into World War II on Guadal canal as a member of the US Marine Corps and then made D-Day landings on Guam and Okinawa. He co-created the beloved Mr. Magoo and was twice nominated for screenwriting Oscars.
Bronson Pinchot began talking at 9 months of age. Today, half a century later, he talks into a microphone in a soundproof booth for a living. In between, he attended Yale University as well as the acting programs at Shakespeare & Co. and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Reviews
“[A] smart, zany comedy…irresistible…Kaufman’s comic imagination, his ability to mix things scatological and historical, political and philosophical, reminds one of those young’uns Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller…But Kaufman seems to have more heart than those ’60s satirists; his precocious young hero pulls on our sympathies even as he trudges on through absurdity.”
“[An] irresistible comic novel, a bawdy, original coming-of-age tale. Kaufman’s screwball sensibility, relish for language, gleeful vulgarism and deep sympathy for his characters make this novel an unprecedented joyride…Kaufman’s book is shot through with worldly wit and a keen sense of the humor in human foibles.”
“The ninety year old’s inquisitiveness and tenacity shine brightly within the novel, in which he weaves words more impressively than a spider spins a web…Kaufman’s writing summons the ghosts of Vladimir Nabokov and Franz Kafka.”
“[Kaufman] packs a lifetime of experience and wisdom into this story…Kaufman’s delight in thrusting Judd from one antic scenario to another is contagious. The audio production is excellent, and Bronson Pinchot carries the story’s many twists and turns with aplomb; his voice is deep, and listening is a pleasure. The story’s globe-trotting transitions well to listening, and listeners will appreciate the narration’s clear use of just-different-enough voices for different characters.”
“Reminiscent of Christopher Moore’s fantastic fiction, this work includes quite a cast of quirky characters and unbelievable sequences of strange events that keep the story intriguing and perhaps also illustrates the turbulence of growing up.”
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