Lawrence Jeffrey Epstein (born 1946) is an American author who writes and lectures about American culture and society, Jewish life, and mystery fiction. He is best known for his book ''The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America'' and his Danny Ryle Mysteries series. He writes intermittently about
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
and popular culture for
The Best American Poetry
''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems.
Background
The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general ...
blog.
Biography
Epstein was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and raised there and in Sag Harbor, New York. His father was a merchant and Veterans’ Counselor. His mother was a photographer and housewife. He got a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from the
University at Albany
The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...
. From 1974 until 2008 he was a professor of English at
Suffolk County Community College, where he also held jobs as Assistant Head of the Department of English and Chairperson of the Humanities Division.
In an interview, Epstein described his intentions for ''The Haunted Smile'': “I wanted to tell the story of Jewish comedians in America starting at the turn of the 20th century…Then I traced the history of the comedians through
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
, radio, movies, and tv…I was interested, for example, in how one generation of comedians influenced another. I got to go to a Friars Roast and go backstage at a comedy club. I also interviewed more than 70 people…I wanted to include the struggles Jewish comedians had, and the weight of their past.”
Filmmaker
Michael J. Epstein
Michael J. Epstein (born 1976), is an American filmmaker, musician, writer, and auditory scientist. Epstein has also spoken and written about the impact of local media on the arts, music service gatekeeping, effective social networking, and crowd ...
is his son.
In 2018, he started publishing The Danny Ryle Mysteries, including the titles: At the end of 2018 he began to publish his most successful mystery series. The books in the series include: The Dead Don’t Talk, A Darker Shade of Blood, The Starry Night of Death, and The Hunted Girl.
Bibliography
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References
External links
Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Epstein, Lawrence, J.
1946 births
Living people
American biographers
American male biographers
Writers from New York City
People from Sag Harbor, New York
University at Albany, SUNY alumni
Suffolk County Community College faculty