The Great Jester: On Simon Rich’s ‘Hits and Misses’
In the middle of his fifth collection of comedic short stories, Hits and Misses, Simon Rich writes a story from the perspective of a court jester named Havershire. “I’ve developed what the French might call une reputation,” the clowns says as introduction. Havershire, we learn, believes he’s disliked because his “barbs have bruised the breast of many nobles.” In fact, it’s easy to see—he’s hated because he’s unfunny. “But thus is the jester’s lot!” Havershire concludes. The jester’s lot: fame, celebrity, delusions of grandeur.
Rich has always written comedy as tangential autobiography. “When I was 25, 26, the only thing on my brain was dating, and that’s why I wrote all those love stories which became . And then for a year or two I was obsessed with is the result of that,” he said in an interview with . And now, Simon Rich is kind of famous.
