They Went Another Way

A Hollywood Memoir

By: Bruce Eric Kaplan

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A darkly comic memoir about being a working creative person in a world that is growing ever more dysfunctional, by acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and television writer Bruce Eric Kaplan

In January 2022, Bruce Eric Kaplan found himself confused and upset by the state of the world and the state of his life as a television writer in Los Angeles. He started a journal to keep from going mad, which eventually became They Went Another Way.

The book’s through line traces his attempt to get a television project set up in the increasingly Byzantine world of Hollywood. But as he details the project’s ups and downs, Kaplan finds himself ruminating not only on show business but also on today’s political and social issues, on old movies and TV shows and music, on his family, on his friends, on his past, on his failing heating system, and on all the dead birds that keep showing up in his backyard.

This hilarious and surprisingly moving book is about life—about art, about love, about alienation, about connection, about ugliness and beauty, about disappointment, wonder, and hope. In short, it is about everything.

©2024 Bruce Eric Kaplan (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Bruce Eric Kaplan has long been one of our foremost humorists—in cartoons, on TV—but his prose is him at his best. His impressions of life are both dagger-sharp and comforting and he engages with the challenge of everyday—everyday parenthood, everyday politics, everyday madness— to create something of philosophical depth and comic precision. This book doesn’t shy away from the challenges of being a person, yet does no less than remind me of the magic in the quotidian, of all there is to love about being human.” —Lena Dunham

“Bruce Eric Kaplan's hilarious, harrowing memoir captures the Sisyphean slog of Hollywood screenwriting better than any work of art I've ever seen. Brutal, devastating, and also somehow inspiring, it made me laugh, scream and sigh with recognition. I absolutely loved it.” —Simon Rich, author of Glory Days

“Bruce Eric Kaplan has written a funny, riveting, honest, and shocking memoir about hope and heartbreak. Essential reading for anyone aspiring to, contemplating, or dreaming of the Hollywood life.” —Delia Ephron, New York Times bestselling author of Left on Tenth