I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

Christina Stead's unforgettable final novel--a profound examination of love and radicalism during the McCarthy era

In the wake of the Great Depression, Emily Wilkes, a young American journalist, travels to a Europe still scarred by World War I. During her crossing, she meets Stephen Howard, a charismatic and wealthy Communist who quickly converts Emily to his ideals when the two become lovers. Upon their return to the States, they marry and settle into a comfortable life in Hollywood as darlings of the American left. Emily shines as a screenwriter and novelist while Stephen dedicates himself to the Party line--but their radicalism soon finds them out of favor and retreating to Paris, where they tragically and bitterly unravel. Published posthumously by Christina Stead's literary executor professor Ron Geering, I'm Dying Laughing is an unflinching look at political faith and romantic attachment.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, 20th Century, Novels, Australia, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Christina Stead (1902–1983) was an Australian writer regarded as one of the twentieth century’s master novelists. Stead spent most of her writing life in Europe and the United States, and her varied residences acted as the settings for a number of her novels. She is best known for The Man Who Loved Children (1940), which was praised by author Jonathan Franzen as a “crazy, gorgeous family novel” and “one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century.” Stead died in her native Australia in 1983.

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel about an American couple who, although they are card carrying communists, spend all their time spending money, making money and worrying about money, even though their incomes were very high for the time period (1940s-1950s). They also lived in fairly grand accommodations all of the time and constantly had several servants. So pretty capitalistic, if you ask me.

The book is about 80% dialogue, and while I found it somewhat annoying at times, for the most part, the book holds up well. Christina Stead is an unjustly unknown writer, and I own quite a few of her other books which I am looking forward to reading.

[Tuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blurb described this as verbose, and that is a good way to talk about this novel of mostly dialog. It is what makes it pretty good. Takes place in usa and france (mostly) from 1930’s through 1950’s and the main characters are leftists and writers, of novels, articles, and screenplays and scripts. So they are fairly well off, yet always support the proles. Stead worked on this novel for many decades and finally died before it was published. Considered one of the great Australian authors, I will withhold judgment till I read something else by her, as this seemed sprawling, blackest of the black humor, and just a devastating and sad sad end.

[Sunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was OK overall. I had read her book called “the man who loved children”, which I thought was a brilliant study of some of the relationships in a large family and you can clearly see that Christina stead has some brilliant insights to give into the relationships that take place. She really reminded me of the American writer Carver who is able to dissect and go into what at first seems like only innocuous detail to paint a picture so effortlessly rich that you feel as though you're not reading a book but studying a painting. Christina stead is able to do this but I found this book a little bit boring if I'm really honest. It's about a woman who gets married to a man and I have to admit that I skipped large parts of it but a lot of it was about communism and capitalism and the clash in those two mentalities which is shown I think in the relationship of the couple in the book. She's clearly a great writer but I found this book a little bit boring and like I said I had to skip large parts of it.

Here are some of the best bits anyway.

Judas Maccabeus and his six sons, it's the menorah, that's the meaning of the seven branched candle stick that Jews use.

Don't you think we to have a lot of that ubermensch psychology, we’re just Nazis dancing to Roosevelt music?

Are we any better than the Germans, coming here like a master race (into America), full of money, eating like swine, with schemes for their improvement which happen to suit ourselves?

She hit the table. Stephen it's all very well for you. Your learned. You went to Princeton. But I came from Arkansas. They don't ever teach anything in America. They're afraid you might question the eternal values like ice cream soda. The tripping over themselves racing further and further backwards into the Ice Age, determined that whatever happens to the world, the Chinese people the Kashmiri, the Kazakhstani shall know more than the average American.

You may take it that there never was and never will be another woman for me. Anyone who was known Emily as a husband has had everything a woman, any woman past or present can give. And suffered all that woman can make you suffer. You cannot be husband to Emily and think of another woman. There are no other woman, when she is there. Are there other winds about when a tornado is in progress? And afterwards when someone says, of a wild wind, “quite a breeze”?, you think what's ignorance of natural forces!

The ancient Britons were a stupid dumb primitive barbarous people. They didn't know how to cook or make clothes. They didn't know anything. They made woad, that's a blue mud they put that blue mud on themselves for clothes and to keep off the lice. They didn't know how to fight, they folded before everyone, the Romans the Saxons the Normans, they run away to the Hills and those who remained became slaves and serfs, they washed the togas and cleaned the sandals of the Romans. They were cowards.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing and sad book set just before WWII in America and Europe (mainly France). Emily is a journalist from a less than shiny background and she marries an heir to a fortune (who does not yet have his money). They live beyond their means manipulating family and friends alike. They are communists in a hedonistic sort of a way so they have to conscientiously object to capitalist work and lifestyles but they (both writers) don't have enough street-smarts to replace capitalism with something better, they are also too selfish and impulsive to live well without millions.

Layers of betrayal, compartmentalisation and hypocrisy of course end in tragedy. The protagonist has been so vile to others (including her own kids) that she sort of deserves it but also noone has ever seemed to have looked out for her -creating the monster she becomes (her husband was even worse than her though came across as less so).

They are still ultimately capitalist-class parasites. This book gives a lot of interesting historical setting and the portrayal of the rich is at once believable and gross.

[Daniel Blok · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this, my inner judge jumped up and down like a yo-yo. Is it good or is it so-so? Christina Stead supposedly changed large parts of this novel before its – posthumous – publication. This she later regretted. But then she died, leaving her trustee/editor to transform a pile of papers and notes into a somehow readable result. Today, in 2019, I tend to sympathise with the author’s second thoughts: rewriting probably did this book little good. The first part in particular suffers from sudden narrative holes and abandoned side tracks.

Nevertheless, I rather have an original book with some flaws than one that’s polished and predictable and 'perfect'.

The writing is good. The characters are entertaining. The story is original. Plot holes aside, what remains is an uncommon book, largely filled with outrageous dialogue – or monologue, since a lot of the time people hardly seem to listen to one another. This book is people talking, arguing, debating, discussing, shouting, interrupting, and other forms of having a conversation. But the conversation’s never dull.

The main characters are a rather odd couple: self-proclaimed communists (or rather parlour reds), well-to-do, living in McCarthy’s forties in New York and Hollywood and in post-war Paris. She, Emily, is a succesful writer/journalist and quite a character: extravert and exuberant, lively and loud, impulsive and non-conformist. And quite funny. He, Stephen, wants to be a writer as well but somehow never gets around to doing anything, which really isn’t a problem since his wife makes a bundle.

The two love birds flee Hollywood and their communist friends’ blind love for Party discipline, and make a foolhardy move to post-war Paris. There they settle, try to build a new life with their (step)children, argue with relatives, talk with other people about (lack of) money and (lack of) principles, eat in good restaurants and bad ones, while the money runs out and doom slowly descends upon them.

[Martin Turnbull · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh boy, I had great expectations for this book but I have noq learned my lesson to disregard any book described as a classic. I lasted 13 pages before I gave up, and now I’m wondering how I even lasted that long. The whole time the main character is someone called Emily to boards an ocean liner bound for Europe and has these random conversations with random fellow passengers, none of it appearing to go anywhere or achieve anything. There are too many books on my “To Be Read List” to waste it on ones that make me think “WTF?” four times a page.