David Henry is a screenwriter, and his brother Joe Henry is a songwriter/singer as well as a music producer. Furious Cool is their first book. They are also at work on a screenplay based on Pryor s life and career.
"Richard Pryor was chain lightning to everything around him. He
shocked the world through with human electricity. He blew all our
comfortable balance to hell. And Furious Cool captures it
brilliantly. Dave and Joe Henry have done an incredible job
allowing us to experience 'the only Richard you could possibly be
talking about.' Part memoir, part biography, part poem, part
history, part ballad, it manages to sing a wake song for an
incredible American. If Richard's comedy was theft-proof, his
genius was always shared. This is a book worth savoring." --Colum
McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin "An addictively readable
study of the path of this outsized talent . . . [A] blazing
entertainment history to authoritative meditation on culture."
--Esquire "The brothers David and Joe Henry--a screenwriter and
songwriter--note early in this book, 'At times, both of us have
wondered whether Richard Pryor was truly ours to approach.' After
deciding they felt 'not a racial but a human kinship' to Pryor,
they forged ahead, and we should be glad they did . . . Loving but
clear-eyed, the book conveys how brilliant and maddening Pryor
could be." --The New York Times "The flames of genius burn bright
and all too often too briefly. Incendiary, foulmouthed comic icon
Richard Pryor changed the face of comedy and possessed, as
biographers David and Joe Henry put it, a Furious Cool." --Vanity
Fair "A sleek, highly literate biography that places the comic in
the pop-cultural context of his times." --Bloomberg News "Furious
Cool is a fabulous history, alive with fascinating characters both
reacting to and creating world-changing events; it is a study of
the seismic cultural shifts of the second half of the twentieth
century, when everything we knew about music, literature,
television, theater, and yes, comedy, was turned upside down and
sideways, blowing our minds and resetting all expectations; it is a
documentary of epic proportions, based as it is upon mountains of
research (all of it refined, sifted, and clarified); it is a love
song and a dirge and silly ditty and a symphony of every emotion .
. . Every person on the planet has to find his or her way to the
truth of life's unfairness, beauty, sadness, opportunities and
limits. That I could get myself part way there riding on waves of
laughter was a wonderful gift, and it was Pryor's gift. Furious
Cool reminds me of his present, and his presence, and for this, I
give thanks to the Henry brothers." --The Huffington Post "It would
be enough if Furious Cool was a profile of Pryor's uncanny talents,
psychic turmoil, and ungovernable behavior, but it's also a
fascinating history of black comedy . . . Furious Cool captures
Pryor's frenetic routines and stage presence on the page . . . The
inextricable legacy of Richard Pryor--his boldness, inventiveness,
candor, and empathy--lives on." --Los Angeles Magazine "A
beautifully written account of the troubled life of a manic
genius." --Booklist, starred review "Richard Pryor was the most
free black man of the 20th century. He also was a comic genius.
This book gives the definitive reasons why he was so free and so
sublime." --Dr. Cornel West "Richard Pryor lives again in the pages
of Furious Cool by David and Joe Henry. With heart and grace and
witnessing, they show us how and why this comic and tragic genius
changed the culture of this country when he could not change
himself. You may be meeting or rediscovering Pryor, but he's likely
to change you, too." --Gloria Steinem
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