Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him

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 . . . Part memoir, part biography, part poem, part history, part ballad, it manages to sing a wakesong for an incredible American.

Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, 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 "As raw and real and stream-of-consciousness as one of Pryor's routines." Patton Oswalt, comedian

It's been a struggle for me because I had a chance to be white and refused.

Richard Pryor was arguably the single most influential performer of the second half of the twentieth century, and certainly he was the most successful black actor/comedian ever. Controversial and somewhat enigmatic in his lifetime, Pryor s performances opened up a new world of possibilities, merging fantasy with angry reality in a way that wasn t just new it was heretofore unthinkable.

It s so much easier for me to talk about my life in front of two thousand people than it is one-to-one. I m a real defensive person, because if you were sensitive in my neighborhood, you were something to eat.

His childhood in Peoria, Illinois, was spent just trying to survive. Yet the culture into which Richard Pryor was born his mother was a prostitute; his grandmother ran the whorehouse helped him evolve into one of the most innovative and outspoken performers ever, a man who attracted admiration and anger in equal parts. Both a brilliant comedian and a very astute judge of what he could get away with, Pryor was always pushing the envelope, combining anger and pathos, outrage and humor, into an art form, laying the groundwork for the generations of comedians who followed, including such outstanding performers as Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K.

Now, in this groundbreaking and revelatory work, Joe and David Henry bring him to life both as a man and as an artist, providing an in-depth appreciation of his talent and his lasting influence, as well as an insightful examination of the world he lived in and the influences that shaped both his persona and his art.