'Woody Allen's wonderful novel reads like one of his films' The Telegraph'As a portrait of
Woody Allen by Woody Allen it's a classic' The Standard'Good gags abound in this tale of a
bespectacled Jewish writer caught up in a #MeToo takedown' GuardianAsher Baum is quietly losing
his mind. Can you blame him?'Maybe what I really want is to make sense of all people's lives.
Of everything the whole shebang'A middle-aged Jewish journalist turned novelist and playwright
consumed with anxiety about everything under the sun Baum's turgid philosophical books receive
tepid reviews and his prestigious New York publisher has dropped him. His third marriage is on
the rocks and he suspects his handsome and successful younger brother may have seduced his
Harvard-educated wife. He is uneasy with her close relationship with her son a more successful
author than he and suspicious of her closeness with their neighbour in Connecticut. And in a
moment of irrationality he has impulsively tried to kiss a pretty young journalist during an
interview that she is about to go public with. Is it any wonder Baum has started talking to
himself? Strangers shake their heads and walk around him on the street. Meanwhile he learns a
startling secret that could cause havoc should he expose it. Should he keep it to himself or
reveal it and blow up his marriage?What's with Baum? is Woody Allen's first novel and it is
everything you would expect of him--and more. A portrait of an intellectual crippled by
neurotic concerns about the futility and emptiness of life an amusing glimpse into the New
York publishing establishment above all a highly entertaining tightly plotted beautifully
wrought piece of fiction from one of America's greatest and most versatile cinematic and
literary talents.
