This Place Has No Atmosphere by Paula Danziger

The years had made a positive difference.' Happily, Krull also tells of visiting Danziger nearly ten years later and finding the author 'much becalmed since our last meeting, just as funny but not nearly so angry and unhappy. Brooks (for Mel) - certainly seemed to fit that bill. They say that every great comedian is deeply sad inside and Paula Danziger, who not only wished she was a stand-up comic but also gave her characters the same last names as famous comedians - Lewis (for Jerry), Allen (for Woody).

She seemed a troubled soul, full of compassion for others but only unhappiness with herself and a disturbing honesty about it.' Her anger was towering, almost out of control. Danziger was one of the best speakers she'd ever heard, she adds, 'She also struck me as possibly in need of therapy, or maybe more therapy. In her book PRESENTING PAULA DANZIGER, Kathleen Krull writes of seeing the author give a speech in 1983. Paula Danziger's blending of humor and melancholy seemed to extend to her own life as well. Subsequent novels such as THE PISTACHIO PRESCRIPTION (1978), CAN YOU SUE YOUR PARENTS FOR MALPRACTICE? (1979), and THE DIVORCE EXPRESS (1982) continued to merge painful topics (abuse, divorced parents, negative self-image) with humor and confirmed Marcy's statement in GYMSUIT that 'middle-class kids have problems too.' Finney, my English teacher.' This story of Marcy Lewis's life-changing ninth-grade year covers some rough emotional terrain - especially in its depiction of a parent's emotional abuse - and though the protagonist emerges somewhat empowered, Marcy never loses her realistic edge of anger, stating on the final page that 'I still hate my father.' THE CAT ATE MY GYMSUIT became an immediate bestseller and announced Paula Danziger as a major new voice in children's books. I hate the principal because he wanted to fire Ms.

I could tell from the title that the book would be funny.but when I turned to the first page I was stunned by the raw intensity of the opening lines: 'I hate my father. I discovered Paula Danziger in the summer of 1974, when she published her first novel, THE CAT ATE MY GYMSUIT.

This probably won't surprise anyone who has read her riotously funny children's and young-adult books. Paula Danziger was once quoted as saying that if she weren't a writer she'd like to be a stand-up comic.

This Place Has No Atmosphere by Paula Danziger