The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz

by Joan Rivers

Book Overview

From the jacketflap:Written with complete candor and riotous disregard for sworn confidences, America's number-one comedienne, Joan Rivers, confides the naked truths about her former best, best... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385293593
• ISBN13: 9780385293594
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Length: 99 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A quick one on the side

The Life and Times of Heidi Abramowitz is a humorous fictional biography of the author Joan River's loose woman alter-ego. With large print, lots of white space, and many drawings by James Sherman, this is really a quick read. Imagine all the jokes and put downs you have ever heard about loose women. Then imagine that there are three times as many that you haven't heard because they were too bizarre or off-color. Joan Rivers has put all these and more that you could never dream up in this short biographical sketch of her quintessential loose woman Heidi Abromowitz. Divided into twelve chapters with titles that range from Baby Bimbo to Hooker Housewife, Joan Rivers will introduce you to a wonderful collection of jokes about tramps, tarts, and teasers. Written at the height of the sexual revolution just before the recognition of the AIDS epidemic, some of the references to penicillin-treatable STDs may seem a bit insensitive by today's standards. While there is much in this book that will be humorous to the liberated reader, there is still plenty to upset the proper reader and the politically-correct.

Oh, that Heidi!

"The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz," by Joan Rivers, is the alleged biography of the sexually adventurous woman of the title. The book features illustrations by James Sherman. As comedienne Rivers writes, Heidi was a tramp from day one: "She did things with her pacifier that most women still haven't done with their husbands." The book has a copyright date of 1984, and the Dell paperback is dated 1985. It's good-natured, dirty fun.The book charts Heidi's sexually promiscuous life from babyhood through elementary school, high school, and adulthood. Rivers covers such milestones as a sex-filled trip to Europe. Interspersed throughout the book are supplements like a page from Heidi's fouth-grade diary, a list of her favorite films (including "Easy Rider" and "Anything Goes"), etc.Quite a bit of the humor stems from Heidi's tendence to spread sexually transmitted diseases. This is very much a pre-AIDS sex comedy, and the STD related humor may leave a bad taste in the mouth of some readers. Still, the book is entertaining, and Heidi comes off as a likeable free spirit who lives life on her own terms; she may have something in common with HBO's "Sex and the City" women. Besides, how could you not love a woman whose "body has been declared a national recreation area"? If you're in the mood, give "Heidi" a try.