Jokes My Father Never Taught Me: Life, Love, and Loss with Richard Pryor

Here's a rambling, warts-and-all look at life with Richard Pryor, the beloved comedy iconoclast whose public success masked a private life brimming with alcohol, drugs, violence and paranoia. Written by his 37-year-old daughter, this family biography chronicles her first meeting with her father at age four, Richard's role as a wayward family man (he had seven children by a number of different women), his struggle with MS, and his 2005 death. Amid less interesting snapshots of her own life-including her work as an actress-Pryor offers a bold but sympathetic portrait of her ""misogynistic, mercurial, unpredictable, and violent"" father that's as fascinating as it is conflicted: ""That was life with Richard Pryor. Sex and violence, punctuated by rare moments of family happiness."" In addition, Pryor takes readers behind the scenes of Richard's career; into the ""weird sort of Richard Pryor Fan Club"" made up of ex-wives, ex-girlfriends and their children; and down Richard's frightening path to debilitating illness. Vital, entertaining and appalling, Pryor has fleshed out a familiar dysfunctional family refrain-""It was a lot easier to love him if you didn't know him""-with bravery and wit.