A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up With George (Kelly Carlin) - St. Martin's Press - 2015 - 322 pages

Readers beware!  This is not a biography of George Carlin.  Instead, it is an autobiography of his dysfunctional, celebrity-brat daughter, Kelly.  Although the cover and the book tour portray this document as an insider's view of the life of the great humorist/philosopher/linguist, George is just a bit player in the "tragic" (i.e. privileged life of Kelly).  Daddy bailed Kelly out of various problems including three pregnancies in high school, kept her on his payroll as an "assistant" until age 35, bought houses for her and various husbands, and paid for her therapist and other luxuries including numerous vacations.  Ms. Carlin could never quite find her place in the world but eventually decided to become a therapist herself in spite of a lifelong history of panic attacks and breakdowns.  She decided in her mid-30s to develop a one-woman show to air the Carlin dirty laundry.  George felt that this presentation and the plans for a memoir were deep betrayals of the trust he had placed in their relationship.  Finally after his death in 2008, daughter Kelly decided to go ahead with the tell-all, non-biography to once again drink the milk from the Carlin cash cow.  There are very few new insights here about one of the most popular entertainers of our time.  Instead, his only child who continually expressed an undying love for her father, decided to relate every ugly story about him that she could remember to somehow relieve her of what seems to be a permanent angst about the unfairness of her life.  George deserves better.  [JAM 9/25/2015]